SOS - gnomes

 This week's challenge at Shopping our stash is all about gnomes - or other mystical creatures like unicorns and mermaids....I love gnomes.  They are everywhere in my house and I love them for card making too.   I have so many gnome supplies that it was hard to choose which to use.  We are locked down here and the kids are all doing at home learning, but the weather is finally nice so I thought I would blend the two.  Play along, will you?

SOS - Here fishy fishy

 This week's challenge at Shopping our Stash is to use a fish on your project - or something fishing related.  I love these layering fish from Altenew and I can't get enough of them...along with this water illusion stencil from My Favourite things and you have a fantastically fishy card.  Play along with us, will you?

Altenew Educator Program - Beautiful Details Class

 This Beautiful Details class by Marika Rhatu was the hardest class for me in all of the Altenew Educator's Program so far.  I can not draw and I do not have the vision to see the details and the way they can get added to flowers.  I decided to jump in and just go with it with and open mind to try my best and I am pretty happy with how most of my cards came out.  I sure do have envy of Marika and her detailing skills as none of my projects came out with the crispness for the details that hers did.

I tried major detailing on the leaves on this card and it is hard to even tell that I did anything.  They just seemed to blend into each other more and more.  I am not sure if I have too heavy of a hand or if I just don't have the artistry to get it right, but I will keep practicing more and more until I can achieve similar results to the class.  All in all I still like my card and the way it looks but it is still missing the definition I was going for.

This card was lots of fun to make... I embossed on the front and coloured with copic markers and then tried to colour with pencil crayons over top of the comics.  I did learn that when it comes to coloured pencils, there is a HUGE difference in quality and ability depending on the brand of pencil.  My daughter's ordered me some prismacolour pencils for Mother's Day tomorrow and I can't wait to try them out with this technique and see if I get different results.  The pencils I was using were just the ones my girls used for school and they are virtually impossible to see over the copic markers.

This was my attempt at monochrome no line watercolouring.   I tried so hard to make it look good and I think it turned out really well for a first attempt.  Watching the video for this class left me in awe and I was actually hesitant to try because I know I have no skill level for good shading or water colouring or hand drawing.  Thank goodness for awesome stamps so that I don't have to rely on my drawing or shading skills.

I had a little fun with this one by trying to do a little of every technique that I learned.  I had two prismacolour pencils and tried them on the copic in for the cup and saucer and they sure stood out compared to the school pencils.  I can not wait to have the set to play with tomorrow.

Altenew Educator Program level 2 - Polychromatic class

 This class was very interesting and I learned quite a few new techniques.  I think my favourite card is maybe the bowtie one because of the rainbow effect with the ties and I do enjoy a card with lots of white space even though I don't always make them successfully.  I often like a busy card but then every once in a while I like to slip in a clean and simple card with lots of white and this one just worked out perfectly for that category.

This card for my monochromatic challenge was a labour of love.  The pieces are left overs from the dodec die that I had made for another class and I inked them in different shades of green and then glued them all to the front of the green card panel in a random pattern so that it didn't look too uniform and was a little more free looking.  I like the way it turned out after all the glueing. 

This was my first attempt at a faux watercolour look and I wasn't too sure of it at first, but as I kept going I liked it more and more.  This technique was completely new to me and outside the box for me so I am glad I got to try it and I will be making more like this for sure.

I love the way this one turned out too and I am torn it it may actually be my favourite after all.  There are so many different layers to it and I used all the same colours in the flowers as in the background, but I watered them down some and used lots of splatter and really played with it.  It was really fun to make.

I chose to go black and white for the flower on my rainbow background card for some contrast.  I quite like the starkness of the white flower.  The water colour background was really fun to make and I am starting to get more comfortable with watercolour effects thanks to these classes.

Altenew Educator Program level 2 - Creative Watercolour Media

 

I absolutely loved this class and all of the techniques that I was able to practice while taking it.  While the techniques were not new to me, the ideas and inspiration had me practicing in all different ways with the mediums used.  I had all the supplies on hand for each of the demonstrations without having to substitute for different items. 

This hydrangea card was by far my favourite from the class.  I love the way the embossing held the watercolour in place and the different shades of purples and blues in the flower made it look like the ones we had in our yard last year.  I also liked the way my blue background turned out.  I am NOT a good watercolour artist and this class made me step out of my comfort zone a lot and I am happy with the results.  It was all done with dye reindeers.

I am not sure that I had ever really painted with shimmer ink sprays before, or if I have, it has been a really long time.   I chose three colours for this one and blended them together and added some splatter.  The copper embossing powder made it feel like a sunset to me.

These cards practiced more on technique with different types of inks.  It is sure interesting the different results with the different ink types.  Some are so much more intense than others.

And finally these cards with an emboss resist background were so much fun and way different than what I normally produce for cards.  I quite liked the end result and thought it looked like a cool wallpaper in the end.  There are several areas that bled into one another but I just went with it and like the way it turned out.  It was such a busy background that I thought the vellum was a perfect way to soften it a little.