AECP – Level 2 Final Challenge – Masculine Cards (Part 1)

I have been working towards my Educator Certification with Altenew through their AECP program.  This is my final for Level 2.  For the final challenge I was given these parameters:

• Select 3 components from Level 1 or Level 2 classes
• Explain these components
• Create 4 Masculine cards for the following themes:

1. Birthday
2. Love/Thinking of You
3. Anniversary
4. Encouragement

• Altered Item/Upcycled Project: Include an additional project that involves altering or upcycling an item (this will be a separate post).

I chose the following components from the Level 2 Classes:

Beyond Basic Backgrounds:  I decided to push myself out of my comfort zone and try techniques I had never done before.

With A Twist:  I  learned in this class how to try things a bit differently than what you are used to by putting  my own twist on the project.

Beautiful Details:  When making masculine cards I struggle with the finer details, so I wanted to be sure this was a component I focused on.

Birthday Card

For all of the cards I used a neutral color pallet.

I chose the Altenew Essential Textures: Gilded Marble Press Plate.  Using  Altenew Permanent Black Pigment Ink for the first layer on the press plate.  Then turning the plate 180 degrees, inking the plate with Altenew Antique Gold Pigment Ink and running it through again.  Oddly, in some areas, it lost its shine, but the color was wonderful.

I cut the inked panel into 1.5” squares and tested the placement on the card front.  After ink blending the white card base with Altenew Morning Frost Fresh Dye Ink, to add a shadow under the edge of the square tiles, I splattered the card base with Altenew Black Gouache.  The squares were adhered with glue and foam tape for added dimension on a few of the tiles.

Using a word and shadow die from Simon Says Stamp, I cut the sentiment from black cardstock and the shadow from white.

I also added a bit of glue and dimensional foam to adhere it to the card base and finished it with a couple gold and black enamel pearls.

 

Love/Thinking of You Card

I bought the Altenew Craft Your Life: Chocolate Flowers project kit just for this 3D embossing folder.  It looked so unique I could not wait to try it out.

I ran brown cardstock through the embossing folder after spritzing the back with a bit of water.  It embossed beautifully.  I trimmed it to be four complete squares.  I cut wax paper and heavy-duty foil and wrapped the cardstock in the two layers to resemble a chocolate bar.

Wanting it to look like a bite had been taken out, I bit the paper and cut around it.  Not exactly what I was hoping for, but I hope you can tell it was meant to be a bite.  I lightly burnished the front to show the squares in the foil.  By tearing the foil and the wax paper, I was able to make it look like someone had opened the chocolate bar to eat it, the crumpling and folding of the layers helped with this as well.

I could not find the sentiment I wanted, so I typed it out and printed it using toner on white cardstock.  The font is Courier New in font size 14.   I used toner reactive foil in iridescent peach.

I wanted the shadow piece behind the sentiment to look chocolatey so I water-colored a piece of paper in a milk chocolate brown.

Cut it all to size and adhered everything onto a kraft card base using glue and dimensional foam tape.

 

Anniversary

This one started with coloring the Altenew Cardinal Love Layering Die Set with alcohol markers.

I colored both the male and female, but I did not like how the female turned out, so I only used the male.

The background is kraft cardstock, embossed using the Altenew Tree Bark 3D embossing folder.  Adding embossing ink directly onto the folder, then heat set the ink with clear embossing powder.

Feeling the result was lighter than I was hoping for, I decided to try something different.  After spritzing the back of the cardstock with water, I ran it through with the Altenew Rows of Squares 3D embossing folder for double embossing.  I really liked the look!

To add a rustic look, I tore the edges, and ink blended them using Altenew Lava Rock Fresh Dye Ink and a large blending brush.  I splattered the embossed panel with Altenew Black Gouache and adhered it to a black card base using dimensional foam tape.

Using the Altenew Versatile Greetings 2 Die Set, I cut the word out of black cardstock twice and the shadow once from brown.  Gluing the stacked word die cuts for dimension and adhering them to the shadow.

Stamping the word anniversary on the same brown cardstock with black ink and heat embossing with clear embossing powder.  The sentiment was adhered with a single layer of foam tape and the cardinal with two layers of foam tape to be sure his foot would sit on top of the sentiment.

 

Encouragement

I started with a kraft cardstock panel and blended various brown Distress Inks to create the look of rocks. I then used the Altenew Calming Reflective Cover Die to cut out the rocks from the blended panel.

Using Altenew Caribbean Sky Fresh Dye Ink, the Water Builder Stencil and a large blender brush, I blended a white cardstock panel.  Then, I turned the stencil 90 degrees and blended again to complete the water effect.

After putting repositionable adhesive on the backs of the large rock die cuts, I attached popsicle sticks to them, pressed the die cut into the embossing ink and then covered them with clear embossing powder and heat set.  While they were still hot, I covered them again with embossing powder and heat set again.

Using the waste portion from the die cut as my guide, I adhered the rocks using either glue or 1mm dimensional foam tape.

Any rocks that had not been heat embossed were then covered in Glossy Accents.

Once everything was dry, I ink blended the panel with Altenew Fresh Dye Inks: Evening Gray using a large blending brush and Moon Rock using a Detail Blending Brush #7.  The panel was trimmed to 4” x 5.25” and adhered to a black card base.

On white cardstock, the sentiment from Simon Says Stamp was stamped using Altenew Permanent Black Ink.  I also stamped on brown cardstock and clear heat embossed it but felt it was hard to read.

Using low tack tape as a mask I covered the stamped image, and ink blended the edges with Altenew Fresh Dye Ink Evening Gray.

Then, the sentiment was adhered with dimensional foam tape.

Tips

Choose a set of colors as your base for your project.  This reduces stress when trying to color match a set of cards.

Try not to rush the project and give it time to dry.  Sometimes heat setting an adhesive will cause it to bubble or crack.

Consider trying a technique that is outside of your comfort zone to stretch your imagination and creativity.

Thank you so very much for checking out my post.  Hope to see you again very soon.