AECP - Easy Die Cutting Techniques

I created three cards for the Easy Die Cutting Techniques class by Yana Smakula.  I love die cutting, so this class was perfect for me.  Despite my experience, I found it very helpful to see so many techniques all brought together in one class.  The lessons were inspiring and I could have easily created many more cards. However, for the purposes of this class and the certification, I focused on three techniques that I don't usually use:  Shaker Elements, Embossing with Die Cuts, and Embossing with Dies.  

      

Making the Shaker Element

I will be talking in more detail about the shaker card.  Shaker cards are generally not my favorite for two reasons.  One reason is that most of my cards are send overseas, so I try to avoid the extra bulk.  The second reason is that I don't like messy look from of foam tape strips as you look at the side edge of the card. Maybe it's nitpicky, but it is what it is.  Despite all that, I do like shaker cards, so I thought this would be the perfect time to give it another try.

From a 5x7 piece of cardstock, I cut out the heart shape for my shaker element using the Mini-Delight Birthday Love Stamp and Die set.  I cut out another heart shape in the same position from a 5x7 piece of craft foam using the cardstock piece as a guide and put it aside for later. 

Back to the cardstock, I scored two horizontal lines (to frame the panel I plan to glue on later) and covered the opening on the back with a piece of acetate using double sided sticky tape.  I then used thin strips of double sided adhesive foam strips to outline the heart and added some shaker elements. 

Now, if you are familiar with making shaker cards, you'll note that I forgot to do something here, but I'll get back to that.

I roughly cut out some patterned paper to easily fit over the hole and then glued some of the shaker elements to the paper so they would always be visible.  Then I stuck the patterned paper face down to adhesive foam strip and cut the to fit a little closer to the  foam strip. 

So at this point, I'm thinking that it was all going pretty smoothly. Then I tested out my shaker and found that many of the shaker elements got stuck on the edge of  foam strips. I carefully pulled off the patterned paper and used some anti-static powder to reduce the stickiness of the edges and then reassembled my shaker.  This time, only a couple of elements got stuck, but now I had anti-static powder visible on my shaker window.  So I disassembled it again, removed all the shaker bits and cleaned off the window and shaker bits and reassembled again.  After a few iterations of this, I was finally satisfied.  Phew!

Now it's time for the 5x7 foam piece.  I used a larger heart die from a nesting set to enlarge the heart that I die cut right at the beginning so it would fit around the foam strips from the shaker element.  It still didn't quite fit, so I used scissors to get the opening to fit right around my shaker element.  I then glued the foam to my card front with the shaker element.

The Card Front

With my shaker element finished, it was time to work on the rest of the card front.  I cut out one heart  from patterned paper and two more of plain cardstock. I glued the three hearts together with the patterned paper on top and glued the stacked heart on my card. 

I cut a small panel from cardstock, embossed it and glued it between my two score lines.  I also stamped and cut out my sentiment from Altenew's Hello and Hugs  stamp and die set

Like the hearts, I also cut two each of the letters "l", "o", "v", and "e" from cardstock and one from patterned paper.  The letters are from Altenew's Tall Alpha Lower case stamp and die set but this time I glued them together with the white cardstock on top and the patterned paper on the bottom, slightly offset so the red would peek out a little.

I glued all the pieces on my embossed panel, tucking the sentiment strip under the "l".  I also glued silver strings from the heart balloons down the side of the card.  As a final touch, I cut about a quarter inch off the left side.  I glued a half inch of silver cardstock on the left side of the card base and then glued my shaker card on top, lining it up with the right side of my card base, allowing a quarter inch of silver cardstock to peek through on the left.

Here is the finished card.

Final Thoughts

At this point, I am a little more comfortable with shaker cards, although can definitely use more practice.  I also had a lot of fun with my other two cards.  For my second card, I use the garden picks 3D die cuts to get a 3D embossing folder effect.  It worked, but I made a mess trying to bring out the 3D effect with my color cube, so I decided to go all in and make it a mixed media style card (even though I only used one medium).  

The third card, I used the dies to emboss the outline of the butterflies.  I also used partial stamping to get the different colors on the solid stamp.  This is my favorite card of the three, mostly because I love the colors.

In all, I really enjoyed this class and all the different lessons.

AECP - Seasonal Scene Building

After a long (almost 2 years to the day) break, I am happy to continue with my AECP Certification.  The next class on my list is Seasonal Scene Building by Nichol Magouirk.  I actually watched all the lessons years ago, and have found them to be very useful.  For my cards for this class, I focused on 3 lessons: Masking a Scene, Oversized Scenes, and Framed Scene.  Here are my 3 cards, respectively.  I am only going to go into detail on my first card.

  

Making a Plan

Generally, I prefer to place a die cut or fussy cut image on top of my scene rather than masking, but for this balloon bouquet, I had four overlapping layers in multiple places so masking became a much better option.  I used the Mini Delight: Birthday Love stamp set, which has one outline and one solid stamp, so I started by stamping 3 outlined hearts on masking paper and fussy cutting them.  Then I  made a sketch of my bouquet.  This was also a perfect way to get some practice with masking.  I then used my matching Altenew Markers to decide on my colors.  I took a few tries, but this is the sketch I used for my card.  (Initially, I had planned to tie the balloons in a bow, but decided I liked the vase better). I used Grapevine, Ruby Red, Velvet, Crimson, Pinkalicious, Coral Berry, and Frosty Pink Alcohol Markers and Crisp Dye Inks. 

Masking and Stamping the Balloon Bouquet

I stamped my vase from the Altenew Versatile Vases stamp set and then it was time to create my bouquet. I started by laying my sketch over my card front to place the outline stamp on the topmost heart.  Then I closed my stamping platform to pick up the stamp, removed the sketch, inked up stamp in Altenew Obsidian Black Ink and stamped it on the card.  Next I lined up the the solid stamp with the outline, and inked it up with the Altenew Crisp Dye Ink corresponding to my marker color. Then I stamped that a couple of times, until I was happy that I had good coverage.

Next I put a mask on top of the heart I just stamped and did the same thing for hearts to the bottom right and left of the first heart, making adjustments in placement where I wanted it.  I had to put some extra pressure near the masks, because the mask raises the stamp, and makes it difficult to get right up to the edge.  I wasn't too worried about it, because I had a plan for that as I will show later.

  

I had decided on 7 hearts, so it took 14 steps to create this, not counting the double and triple stamping I did to get a solid image.  I was very thankful for my stamping platform.  This is what it looks like after all the stamping was complete

Finishing Touches

If you look closely at the last picture, you can see white near the masks, where the stamp could not reach.  These areas should all be cast in shadow, so I used my Altenew Alcohol Markers in the corresponding colors and drew a shadow there.  I first drew some strings in pencil and then went over it with a think black micron pen. I also used a very light gray alcohol marker to add some dimension to the vase.  For the sentiment, I die cut a HUGS sentiment in black and it's shadow in white from Altenew's Hello and Hugs Stamp and Die Bundle and glued them in the center of the vase.  Last but not least, I cut 3/16th inch of each side of my card front and glued it to my card base with two 4.5 x 6.5 inch panels of thick cardstock in between to add some dimension.  Here is the finished card.