Almost 1 year ago to the day I started AECP, Altenew’s Educator Certification Program, and today I can say I finished the last assignment, which was to teach a card making class. This past Saturday I had 6 students and the two coordinators of the program attend my workshop, “Bits & Pieces: Getting the Most From Your Stamp Sets,” via Zoom We had a blast. We made 4 cards together using the small, supporting stamps that come with stamp sets. I was quite nervous before we started. Although I’ve taught for 40 years, I had never taught via Zoom before. Also, for 11 of those teaching years, I taught customers at the Apple Stores how to use their Apple products, so I am fairly tech savvy. However, Zoom is not an Apple product and I had never hosted a Zoom meeting before. There were a few minor tech glitches, but nothing that spoiled the class.

Here are my inspiration cards. I used the leaf stamps from the Beautiful Day stamp and die set and the flower cluster from Grateful Heart. My idea for the class was to find ways to use those smaller stamps that you may not usually use. I’m pleased that my students were able to do exactly that. One of them said, “I’ve owned this stamp set for years and never used this stamp.” Everyone in the class did not have the exact same stamps that I used, but they were able to look at their stamps and create beautiful cards using my design ideas and the stamps they had on hand.

It was such a joy to teach this class and the cards my students made were wonderful. Here are some of them.

You can easily see which inspiration cards she used and how she was able to use stamps she already owned to created similar cards. I encouraged students to use what they had for coloring and the colors they were drawn to. My middle card was watercolored, but my students could use whatever coloring medium they wanted to.

For these two cards, you can see she created my cards almost exactly, but used a different sentiment for the card on the right and different colors for the leaves on the left.

Again, you can see how they used the inspiration cards to make cards that are personal to them.

These cards were made by a very good friend who is not a cardmaker at all, but a mixed media and collage artist. However, she attended and using supplies that she had she was able to create cards that she was proud of too.

All in all, I’m so glad I started on this AECP journey. I have learned a lot of techniques, and met some awesome people along the way. It has also kept me busy during COVID and I’m very grateful for that. I can’t wait for the next phase in my Altenew journey.