A new class at Altenew just started today, taught by Jaycee. He’s a fabulous card artist. Today’s class was Elements of Art – Color. Using the 60 30 10 rule, using 60% of one color then 30% of a second color and 10% of a third color, to create a card. I also wanted to participate in Altenew’s October Inspiration Challenge. I haven’t done the challenge in a few months. If you’re interested in participating here’s the link .

When I started to look for a stamp set for this first class I looked for one that had stamp layering with only 3 colors, so I chose the Garden Hydrangea. As you see this month’s challenge is fall colors so I wasn’t sure the colors would go well with the hydrangeas. I stamped the outline in a light grey so I could see where to line up the layering. I only used two colors for the flowers I used was Butternut for the all over background and Yellow Ochre for the centers. For the most detailed stamp I used the Butternut again and stamped several times just to get a hit of the details. Once the flowers were all colored I stamped the outline again with Versamark ink and white heat embossed them. I used on,y the Moss green color for the leaf. I only used one leaf but cut it into 2 pieces. I also heat embossed with white the details on the leaf. After I arranged my designed I was disappointed that you could hardly distinguish the two flowers apart. So I took a small paint brush and using the Yellow Ochre ink I painted a shadow behind the top leaf. It’s a subtle effect but I think it worked. I stamped the “SENDING LOVE & HUGS” with the same Moss ink and mounted. I then matted the card front with matching green card stock and then mounted everything on a white card base. I’m extremely happy with the way it turned out. Please let me know what you think. I’m always up for some constructive criticism.