AECP Level 1 All About Layering

Hello everyone, welcome back I am glad you are here today! I am so excited to finally be able to share my first card for the Altenew Educator Certification Program. I finally got a huge haul of fun Altenew supplies and I was ready to get starte! Quick note before I proceed with the cards today. I will not be doing videos for my AECP cards. This is to protect the intellectual property of the class instruction.

If you are interested in participating in the program, you can click on the link above and learn all about it.

I had such a fun time creating these two cards for my first class, "All About Layering 3" Altenew has gorgeous floral layering stamps that had so much detail and depth to your floral images. They really put all of the "artist detail" right at your fingertips. This 1st layering class took it up a notch, however and showcased different ways to add even more layers and depth to your projects.

For my first card I used the "Beautiful Day" set. I've had this set for years...it's actually the first set I ever owned from Altenew. I finally did treat myself to the coordinating dies for this class! For the first flower I stamped the layers with distress oxide inks (bottom to top) with Ground Espresso (this is actually the outline of the stamp) followed by Tattered Rose, Victorian Velvet and Aged Mahagony. For the second flower, the outline was stamped with Villanous Potion followed by Shaded Lilac, Dusty Concord and Seedless Preserves. I cut both flowers out with the coordinating die cuts. I die cut 3 of the leaves and branches as well. For the branch of leaves at the bottom corner, I used Bundled Sage, Rustic Wilderness and Forest Moss for layers. For the other two branches, I used Rustic Wilderness and then did a bit of simple coloring with a light green prisma color pencil. I didn't want the leaves to get lost against the white background.

I took a smaller piece of white card stock and used my mini score board to just create some embossed lines across it. Using simple texture like this is another way to add depth and layer to your card.

I added the flowers along the bottom right edge. The purple flower is adhered directly to the card with no dimension while the pink flower does have dimension behind it. In the class instruction, we also learned that when adding things like leaves and branches, using an odd number can make the card feel more balanced and natural. I added the sentiment at the top left corner in order to balance the card since most of the activity is in the lower right corner.

For my second card, I used Altenew's Garden Delight set. Again I used Distress Oxide inks for each flower.

Flower 1 (Blue Flower) Chipped Sapphire, Speckled Egg, Broken China, Unchartered Mariner

Flower 2 (Pink Flower) Villainous Potion, Tattered Rose, Abandon Coral and Seedless Preserves

Flower 3 (Yellow Flower) Ground Espresso, Scattered Straw, Rusty Hinge and Crackling Campfire

Leaves: Bundled Sage, Rustic Wilderness, Forest Moss

I die cut all the flowers and leaves with the coordinating die cuts. For the background on this card, I used Altenew's half tone stencil with Antique Linen. Adding a light background with a neutral color such as this or a light grey can really add interest to your card without pulling attention away from your focal point.

I used a soft blending brush with the stencil to get a faded sort of look with the stencil and I didn't cover the entire backround. I wanted it to fade out in a natural way towards the bottom of the card. I layered the flowers in the center leaving room for the sentiment at the bottom. As with the first card, there are varying levels of dimension with the flowers and leaves. I added a bit of sparkle to each of the center of the flowers with my Spectrum Noir glitter pen.

I hope you enjoyed the cards today. I can't wait to share more with you as I progress through this awesome program!