Chaos & Happiness

  course with Altenew Academy was a favorite of mine.  Amy was so informative and so talented. Her projects were gorgeous! Her explanations as to why she did certain things, what papers to use with the blending, examples of her blending with swatches, taking time to blend with a light hand, and having patience. I have made a few projects since completing the course and wasn't sure which one to focus on.  In the end I decided to just make a new one all together. So last night I decided that I was going to make something different, rather than just a die cut card with a splotch of blended ink in the middle of it.  The Open Peony Layering die set caught my eye and I wanted to use softer colors for the overall look,  instead of colored cardstock.  Don't get me wrong, I love colored cardstock but for the look I imagined the blending was the way I wanted to go.  So I chose the Altenew crisp dye inks I have in the cubes and blended 3 greens and 4 pinks on...

 I really loved this course.  I'm by no means a beginner at crafting in general, but some of the tips and techniques Jennifer had were wonderful!  Like the dry embossing tip using a scoring tool.  I don't have a folder or die that would have worked for what I wanted to do, but Jennifer mentioned using an scoring tool to frame with... Lesson 3 of the course was a wow moment for me because I had forgotten all about that.  Dry embossing!  When I first started scrapbooking and such, there weren't very many tools to enhance pages and cards like there are today.  We made do with what we had.  Scoring and using the embossing tool was the way to do it.  I loved the way it turned out and even used it on vellum too. The course hit on a few different techniques and I probably mixed quite a few into the cards I made.  I have been on an alcohol marker kick since the first set I bought.  I think when it comes to blending, I have gotten a lot bett...

My granddaughter has a special book about Grandpas that she wants her grandpa to read to her all of the time.  One of the pages, her favorite btw, is a picture of two penguins.  That would be the reason I bought this stamp when it was on sale a couple of weeks ago.  I love this little stamp and die set !  It is simple and so easy to make a great card.  I used silver pigment ink to blend an edge around the entire card panel after I had embossed it and left the middle black.  Afterward, I used some clear embossing powder to accentuate the middle of the card panel.  It was just enough of a "spotlight" to enhance the the penguins, being that they are the only focal point on the card.  I used some snowflake sequins on the first one and then thought I'd give a shaker card a go.  I love both versions.  I cut the circle out of the base with the fine circle rings largest die.  Put a piece of vellum behind it and used some craft foam to lift...

 I finally got a few photos done and have so many more to do... but I'm not disappointed in how many.  I have most of the class projects completed, yet struggle with time to get them uploaded and detailed info to go with them.  Life stuff. So to the project shall we?  In the All about layering II course, Nicole has a lot of tips on getting your layers to line up.  She did such an amazing job explaining the steps and cheering you on to keep practicing.  I have enjoyed her as an instructor!  I definitely want to keep up the practicing!  The layered images are too beautiful not to.   I'm gonna get long-winded her but I tend to be over the top in explaining how I did things.  For this card, I used Nina Solar White 80 pound cardstock for my card base and panel.  I used quite a few ink colors.  For the flower, I used Pale Mauve, Amethyst, Grape Agate, and Plum crisp die inks.  For the leaves, I used Pistachio, Limeade, Gree...