Altenew Educator Certification Program: Level 2 Project

My task for the final project for the Altenew Educator Certification Program for Level 2 is to create a home décor project and a coordinating card.  I was also encouraged to include a video.

I had so many ideas of home décor projects that it was really hard to decide which one to choose.  I made a list of almost 20 projects.  Needless to say I spent some time yesterday creating projects and videos to decide which project I liked the best.

I selected a tea light lantern made from one of Altenew’s Cover Die sets.

Even with the lights on, you can see the electric tea light glowing through the lantern!

I love making lanterns of all kinds.  I have a bunch of battery operated candles and tea lights that I enjoy creating covers or containers for to use for all occasions.  I always create these around holidays for table settings or mantle decorations.

As I was trying to decide what project I wanted to do, I was thinking about which Altenew product I wanted to highlight with my project.  Altenew is known for their floral layering stamp sets that are truly stunning stamp sets.  I love using them.  I thought about making a set of tile coasters using several of the floral sets.  I also LOVE Altenew inks.  They are amongst my favorite inks to play with because they blend well, the are easy to use for watercoloring techniques and they stamp beautifully.  Plus, the colors that I have so far are gorgeous.  I can’t even pick a favorite…teal cave, lagoon, volcano lake…I could now choose if you made me!  I had several ideas that would have highlighted the inks.

I have really also been enjoying the stencils and I just splurged on the newly released stencils.  There are so many possibilities for wall art using the stencils.  I have a canvas project in mind, but it is a move time consuming project than I have time to complete over the next couple of weeks.  I’ll put that on the back burner.

Then, there are the cover dies.  I have several cover dies.  I started out purchasing the Halftone Circle Cover Die and then the Cube Cover Die.  I’ve used them more for creating stencils to do inking and blended backgrounds on my cards rather than use them for their intended purpose…to create a die cut layer for a card.  I found myself looking for new ways to use them.  They are pretty pricey, so it was quite a splurge to make the purchase, but once I purchased one, I was hooked.  In the video you will see my shameless collection of cover dies from Altenew!  I can tell you that there are a tremendous number of ways to use these dies for projects so they have been worth the investment for me.

Altenew also has layered cover die sets.  There are two coordinating dies that work perfectly on their own, but if you layer them, they create a fabulous scene.  Honestly, you need nothing else to create a gorgeous card besides the two die cuts layered together attached to a card base.  You actually purchase them separately and they make great cards with only one of the pair.

I chose to use the Cityscape cover dies to create this tea light lantern cover.

I die cut 4 of the cover layer A from black card stock and 4 of the cover layer B from Copper Foil.  I also cut a sheet of velum in half so I had 2 5-1/2 x 8-1/2″ pieces that I scored at 4-1/4″.  I contemplated adding some color to the vellum, but I’m so glad I didn’t.  I love the way the project looks with the plain vellum.

I attached the cover die layers together and attached them to the vellum using Altenew’s Glue Tape runner.  I love this tape runner because while it is permanent adhesive, you have time to reposition pieces and it behaves like a temporary adhesive until you really apply some firmer pressure to it.  I like having time to fiddle when I’m layering things.

I used some adhesive tape that is 1/4″ wide to attach the two panels together and create the square lantern.

Then you can just place it over your battery operated candle or tea light and you are done! (Never use it with an open flame candle!!!)   It flattens nicely to store and it’s is relatively inexpensive to create since it is just paper.  I love projects like these.

Aren’t these cover dies fantastic?  I’ve created a scene that I can build a dinner party theme around.  These look nice on my mantle and they make pretty additions to your table settings.

I’m already planning on making lanterns with the striped leaf cover die and using them on my deck over the summer for a good pool side party.  Check it out with the lights out:

Pretty!  Imagine creating several of these and placing them around the room or around the deck.

I also made a coordinating card…I used a silver metallic element instead of the copper, but I used the cityscape theme.

I so loved that clear embossing technique, that I wanted to use it on this card.  The cityscape is subtle.  This stamp is from the Sketchy Cities of America.  Of course I had to use the I Love sentiment from the Everything About You stamp set, but I paired it with a secondary sentiment from the Sketch Cities Abroad stamp set.  I added some shimmer mist and my white Altenew Ink spray to look like stars in the sky and give the card some shimmer.  I added some clear sequins and stars from a Hero Arts sequins mix just for fun.  I also added some silver glitter tape and a strip of white and black cardstock below the main panel of the card.  The sentiments are all heat embossed and the panel is attached with foam tape for dimension as is the secondary sentiment.

I also made a simple second card so you could get a good look at the sketch city stamp:

A clean and simple one layer card.  The sentiment is from the Happy Dreams set and I’ve added a few black sequins just because I love sequins!  I would consider this to be a boutique card.  That image is just perfect and fun.  It lends itself to a great clean and simple card.

I believe sentiments are another thing that Altenew does really well.  They have so many great sentiments in their stamp sets and I love to pick and choose from the various sets to combine them in different ways.  I enjoy picking a sentiment that conveys what I am trying to say with the image and colors.  This card will be for one of my students that is graduating this year.  I love this for a graduation card and it will work for a guy or a girl.

I have also created a video.  I have to say that this is the longest video I ever made, but I didn’t want to cut any more out of it or speed it up.  I wanted to share how I created the project and why I love those cover dies!  I promise that I have some short quick tip videos coming up!

 

Thank you so much for stopping by! Make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel if you haven’t already. I think I’m finally up and running and ready to make videos on at least a weekly basis again.

 

I hope you find time to craft today.

By the way…here are a few of the other projects I created:

My husband liked the lighthouse tile coaster I made him from the Be a Lighthouse stamp set.  The lantern wine glass shade uses the Peony Scroll stamp set embossed in white.  The candles used the tissue paper technique.  I didn’t love any of these projects.  I’m embracing their imperfections!!!

Have a wonderful day!