My Altenew Educator Certification Program, AECP, is nearly at an end. The last step to do to be fully certified is teaching a class. Here’s a description of the class that I’ll be teaching.

“Bits & Pieces, Getting the Most From Your Stamp Sets.” When you purchase stamp sets, you want to get your money’s worth. Rather than using only the main focal stamp, you can use bits and pieces from a set to make beautiful cards. In this class, I’ll show you ways of using those supporting and small stamps, the bits and pieces, that come with a set, to make beautiful cards. Feel free to use stamps from whatever sets you already own. It will be held on January 15 at 2:00 pm EST.

I’m required to have at least 4 participants and no more than 10, so I’m looking for people who would like to attend by Zoom. If you are interested please email me at lbp@mac.com and let me know. Once you are registered I’ll send you a supply list. Below is a sneak peek at the cards you’ll be making.

Now for the Year in Review Challenge. Altenew offers a card making challenge each month. In December you can choose from any of the Challenges from that year. Here is my card for the challenge.

I had so much fun designing this card, because I had no idea where it was going to lead me.

I started by spraying Altenew’s Antique Gold Ink Spray on 80 lb. white cardstock. Then I decided to cut out leaves from the sprayed paper using Altenew’s Just Leaves Stamp Set. After trying several different arrangements of the leaves I decided that I would ink blend a blue background. I used Eastern Sky, Ultramarine Tide Blue and Turquoise Crisp Die Ink. The blending brush I used for the darker blues, even though I cleaned my brush, still had some purple on in, as you can see in the photo. But I like the way the background turned out anyway.

As I was working on the card I thought I’d make a birthday card for my mom to give out. She is 94 and many of her friends are in their 80s, so I wanted to use the Mega Greetings 3 stamp set which has large letters and is easy to read. However, the word Friend filled the whole card and left no room for the leaves. I wondered what it would look like if I put the leaves over the word. Would the Friend be large enough to still be seen through the leaves? The answer was no. But, what if I also stamped the leaves? So, I first stamped the “Friend” in black using my stamp positioner. Then placed the leaves over the word in the arrangement I wanted. Next, I used Press and Seal, by Glad, to pick up my leaves but keep them arranged. I then carefully scotch taped the leaves together on the back so they would stay together after I removed the Press and Seal. With the leaves taped on the backside, I could then place them back over the word “Friend” and stamp again using black ink over the leaves. I removed the leaves, carefully removed the tape, and then adhered the leaves in place, lining up the stamped image of the word “Friend.”

I’d like to say that lining the leaves up to match the word was easy, but it wasn’t. I love the way the card turned out and I will try the technique again. But, I need to find a better way of keeping the leaves together while stamping on them. Any suggestions?

If you are interested in participating in Altenew’s Challenge click here.