Peace Begins With A Smile – Mixed Media Card

Hi Crafty Friends and Happy World Card Making Day!

Today I finished my final Level 1 class for AECP – this is my last one and once I submit this card I will have completed all ten classes and will be ready to receive my final challenge!  This class was  All About Layering 1 taught by Nicole Picadura and in some ways this would be a good class to start off with, except that I had already done this class before, as it is a class currently offered by Altenew for free! Links to all my Level 1 classes are in the list at the end of this post.

Inspiration

There is a lot of helpful tips and tricks in this class for layering up your stamped images, especially floral images and it’s a great class to take if you are new to working with layered stamps.  Initially I was going to use Vintage Roses stamp set for my card but then I decided I wanted to use die cutting also, and I don’t have the dies for Vintage Roses.  So I decided to go with another rose floral set called Build-a-Flower Rose which is sold as a package of stamps and companion dies.

Overview of my card process

How gorgeous are these flowers when they are all stamped up and layered?  I used my Tim Holtz stamp platform to do my stamping, and I decided to use the Shades of Purple ink cubes for my roses, and the Sweet Dreams ink cubes for my leaves.  This rose flower is actually stamped in 6 layers which adds so much depth to the image.  I was able to stamp each layer of the rose six times without moving the stamp because of how I set up my card in my stamp platform as you will see below.

Then I stamped the leaves in the same way, managing to stamp each leaf layer eight times without moving the stamp, and just rotating the image.  Once all the stamping was done, I die cut all the flowers and leaves and then did a little extra colouring with my Polychromos to add some highlights.

As I was planning my card layout I decided to use some of this gorgeous pattern paper from the Summer Garden paper pack by Altenew, and I actually did a bit of extra colouring on top of it, then added some gold splatters.  As you know, I like making big cards, and this is another one – 5.5 x 8.5 inches – and the paper pack is only 6 x 6 inches, so it was coming up short!  I knew there must be a way to make it work and also hide where the paper ended and the cardstock began, so I pulled out this Gilded Ombre washi tape and fussy cut it along the gilded edge and attached it to the top of the paper, which added about 1 inch to the length. I added some scrap cardstock behind the washi tape so that it would be flat and smooth on the card, and glued everything to the white card base.

To balance things, I added a strip of the narrow Gold washi tape along the bottom edge of the card, and then started to position my roses and leaves, leaving room to add the sentiment “Peace begins with a smile”.  The sentiment is from the same stamp set, and I stamped it with Versafine Onyx Black ink.  I popped some of the roses up on foam tape to add more dimension to the card.

Thoughts

I really love this stamp set and the fact that it has six layers is really incredible and adds so much depth to the rose – it really is a stunning flower!  I had to get a bit creative with the colouring as I only had four purple shades of ink but I used a couple of the colours twice and it worked out well.  I enjoyed making every part of the card.  I hope you enjoyed reading about this card and that you find inspiration from it.

PROJECT RECIPE:

Altenew – Build-a-Flower Rose stamp and die set, Paper pack, Shades of Purple Mini Cube set, Sweet Dreams Mini Cube set, Gilded Ombre Washi Tape, Gold Washi Tape, Summer Garden paper pack
Versafine Clair ink – Onyx Black
Neenah white cardstock
Jane Davenport – Gold Lame acrylic Paint
Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive, Nuvo Drops purple
Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils
Tim Holtz stamp platform
From stash: scrap white cardstock

FYI Here’s a list of all my Class posts for Level 1:

.All About Layering 1  You are here
.All About Layering 2
.Clean & Simple Boutique Cards
.Easy Ink Blending Techniques
.For The Guys
.Let It Shine
.Celebration: Stencil Techniques
.Seasonal Scene Building
.Easy Die Cutting Techniques
.Irresistible Inking Techniques