Easy Ink Blending - AECP Journey

Hello and happy Monday!  I hope you're all doing well.  Today I am back with a card from my 4th class on my AECP journey to become a certified instructor for this amazing company. 

This class, as the title suggests is all about easy ink blending.  The instructor Amy, teaches some wonderful techniques through the duration of the course and even if you are a veteran ink blender, you are sure to learn some great new tips and tricks and also get a bit of a refresher. 

 

 

For this card I choose to use the Poppy Garden stamp set from Altenew.  It has some gorgeous florals that are perfect for any type of colouring medium.  The technique that I decided to try was something new for me.  It's called faux watercolouring and is great to try if you are new to this medium or just aren't completely confident with your watercolouring skills yet.  I started out by cutting a piece of Canson Mix Media paper to 4.5"x5.75" and then proceeded with stamping my images one by one with my Versamark ink pad, which is a slow drying ink that will allow you time to add your embossing powder before it dries, compared to some other inks that dry immediately.  I added the embossing powder and heat embossed each image immediately after stamping, as this allowed me to see exactly where I wanted to place my next image. 

 

 

Once I had all my images finished I choose different colours of Altenew inks for my ink blending.  I decided to use Cotton Candy, Coral Berry, Lavender Fields, Aqualicious and Citrus Burst and then blended them using my blending brushes.  These brushes make it easy to blend the inks effortlessly.  Once I was happy with my blending, I added a few Distress Inks with some water and a paintbrush to give the flowers that watercoloured look.  I do think I need to work on this part of the technique a bit more, but I was happy with my first time trying it.  I added a sentiment from Altenew's Beautiful day stamp set and decided to add some random flecks of black ink and i think that this is where I failed bit.  I decided to dilute the black ink a bit and I realized that I shouldn't have done that....oops.  I also think I added a few too many black (or should I say grey) ink flecks.  But you know what....handmade isn't perfect and that's the beauty of it. You learn from your mistakes and move on.

 

 

To finish my card I die cut it using a rectangle stitched die so it was a bit smaller than my card base and to give it a bit of detail around the edge of it.  I then added a few clear and iridescent sequins and adhered it to my card base.  I really enjoyed this class, as I have all the others I have taken so far.  I learned some new techniques and had a great refresher on some I was already familiar with. 

I do think that I need to practice a bit more with this technique in particular, but with practice you can only improve.  And although you may make mistakes along the way, they are only chances to learn from them.

Thank you for stopping by today 😊  I'd love to know what you think down below in the comments.  I hope you all have the most wonderful day and until next time! 

Supplies Used:

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• Altenew Beautiful Day stamp set
• Altenew Poppy Garden stamp set
• Altenew Poppy Garden masking stencil
• Altenew inks Cotton Candy, Coral Berry, Citrus Burst, Aqualicious and Lavender Fields
• Distress Ink Spiced Marmalade, Mermaid Lagoon, Dusty Concord and Picked Raspberry
• Versafine Watermark stamp pad
• Lawn Fawn black licorice ink pad
• Stampendous Detail White embossing powder
• Lawn Fawn stitched rectangles
• Pretty Pink Posh clear sequins
• Darice iridescent clear sequins
• Taylored Expressions blending brushes
• Canson Multi Media Natural White paper