Altenew Educator Certification Program: Celebrations Stencil Techniques

The next Altenew Academy class project I want to share with you is the Celebrations Stencil Techniques.

I’ve shared many cards that use stencil techniques over the last month, but there was one stand out technique in the class that I had never tried before:  Embossing Paste.

I bought the Shimmery White Embossing Paste as soon as it came out in the catalog in JUNE…no, wait. I bought it in MAY.  I bought it in May and have not used it yet.  Keep in mind that I had a 10 week summer vacation and a week of vacation at Christmas time.

Shameful, right?!

The instructor made it look so easy on the video, so why not give it a shot?

Welllll…I had my doubts about this one for about 2 hours.  Once I got the final cards done, I really like it.  However, I can tell you that I must get that laundry tub I bought hooked up ASAP!  My craft room needs a slop sink because I will be trying this again.  I will try it until I master it!

I created two cards.  Let me share the first one with you:

Okay.  That shimmery white paste is so sparkly!!  It is really pretty.

On this card I’ve used the Altenew Stone Wall Stencil.  Doesn’t it look like a real stone wall?  I blended in some Icing on the Cake brown ink from the Catherine Pooler ink collection since I don’t have any shades of brown or gray from Altenew yet.  (I am slowly building my Altenew ink collection!)  It honestly looked like yummy frosting as I was mixing the color in to the paste with my palette knife!

I cut a piece of Sahara Sand card stock to about 5 x 6″ and attached it to the stencil with washi tape.  Then I smeared the paste and smoothed it over the stencil with my palette knife.  It looked like a mess and I’m very glad that I bought that Teflon crafting mat from Tim Holtz all those years ago when he first came out with it and he was showing it off on the Carol Duvall Show.

That mat made cleaning up after this technique easy.

I let it sit for about 10 minutes while I started my next card.  I removed the stencil very carefully and then let it dry for a good 2 hours.

The paper curled quite a bit and I ended up trimming it down with my craft scissors.  I actually used some Altenew adhesive to temporarily adhere it to a piece of grid paper so that I could cut straight.  That worked pretty well.

The pasted piece is attached to a black card base with foam tape.  I used a piece of black and white washi tape for the edge of the card.  The floral pieces are from the new Altenew Wings of Hope stamp set.  I added a few details with my 0.3 Copic Black Multiliner (thank you Boutique class!).  Those are popped up on foam tape and adhered to the dried embossing paste.

That sentiment.  Isn’t it fabulous?  Another of Altenew’s February release stamp sets and it’s a really good one: Crafty Life.  It’s full of really fun sentiments for all your crafty friends and relatives.  The sentiment is white embossed and the florals use the new Pink Pearl and Minty Mint inks that were just released from Altenew as well.

I will be honest that I spent two hours of crafting wondering if this card would work.  I’m happy with the end result.  Look at the sparkle:

Pretty.  We have rocks on the beach that look just like that.  I will be using that stencil with this technique for more cards.

 

For my second card with this technique, (You know that I can’t make just one!), I created my own stencil with a piece of card stock and the Altenew Watercolor Stripes Cover Die.  You know, so far I have used that cover die for many things, but not for watercoloring.  Yet.

I made the stencil out of card stock assuming I could just toss it out when I was done.

I wanted to try that pretty new Teal Cave mixed in with that shimmery paste and I wanted to see a pink mixed in as well.  Hence the two colors on the card.

A couple of years ago, I shared a video about using bright colors of embossing powder on black card stock and many people were surprised by how pretty the result of that combination turned out to be.  Myself included.  A little experimenting sometimes leads to nice surprises!  I had to try that combo with this technique just to see what would happen.

I added some Warm Sunshine card stock and ink for one of the sentiments.  There is a little coordinating die set to go along with the Crafty Life stamp set.  Aren’t these sentiments really fun?!

The watercolor stripes die is supposed to look torn and imperfect, so the paste is not a mess by accident…that is what it is actually supposed to look like!

I love the bright colors on the black background and you still see the shimmer.

 

In the end, I found it easier to use the purchased stencil than the card stock one.  I may try to make my next stencil out of a window sheet because the paper did get a little soggy in the end.

Again, I had my doubts as I waited for the paste to dry and I had NO IDEA what kind of cards I was going to make from these things.

It all turned out alright in the end!

Thank you for stopping by!  I have more cards ready to share with you for tomorrow.  I was busy making cards for another class project while waiting for these to dry!

Time is never wasted when you spend it in the craft studio!  Remember to embrace the imperfections!

Have a wonderful week!