I made several alcohol inked backgrounds yesterday and decided to turn one into a Christmas card. The tones on this one turned out beautiful! Not your typical Christmas colours, but so rich and elegant looking! I am also linking this card to Anything Goes Challenge over at the bastel-traum blog.
Juste Pour Toi - Alcohol Inks
I had a bit of a play today with my alcohol inks and alcohol lift ink and just kind of went spur of the moment. Have you ventured into the world of alcohol inks and seen how amazing and magical they can be?



This is not my usual style, but I really like the grungy kind of cool look to it! It's kind of like you're looking into a well or even the ripples of water after you throw a coin or some rocks into the water. I'm sure there are many other things you could take from it as well. I do think that alcohol inks are a must have and will be for the most part, my go to for masculine cards.
Supplies used:
- Ranger /Tim Holtz Alcohol Inks - Pitch Black and Stream
- Ranger /Tim Holtz Alcohol Blending Solution
- Ranger/Tim Holtz Alcohol Lift-Ink
- 96% alcohol
- Yupo paper
- Create A Smile Hypnotize stamp
- Altenew label Love French stamp
- black cardstock
- white card base
- 3M foam tape
Reverse Stencilling
I recently saw a new technique on YouTube that looked pretty fab and I just had to try it! It's called reverse stencilling and I saw it on Rina K Designs You Tube.



I really like the effect that this gives...it makes it appear as if you started with a black base but was still able to achieve the vibrant colours that are peeking through. There are sooo many stencil and colour combinations to explore with this technique...I can't wait to try some more!
Supplies used:
- Altenew Sunburst stencil
- Ranger Distress Inks - Mermaid Lagoon, Mustard Seed, Picked Raspberry, Ripe Persimmon and Black Soot
- lil' inker Shiny Happy Sentiments stamp set
- Stampendous Detail White embossing powder
- black cardstock
- Stampin' Up! stampin' dimensionals
- misc. double sided adhesive
- white card base
CAS -Clean and Simple
Irresistible Inking Techniques - AECP Journey
I'm back with my next assignment for my AECP course. This is my 10th and final class for level 1. This class was all about irresistible inking techniques and was taught by Sara Naumann. She is a great and very thorough instructor and we learned some new ways to use your inks, in addition to just inking up your stamps.
ETA....I've lost of my photos when I changed blog host providers, so some posts will have very few photos.

For today's cards I combined 2 of the techniques, that quite frankly, I'm not sure why I've never tried them before, even though I have seen them done...stamp block inking and direct to paper inking. All you need for them are an ink pad, a clear acrylic block and a water spritzer. I grabbed 4 different inks, as I wanted to make a set of 4. For the ink block stamping I grabbed a square acrylic block that is about 2.75"x2.75" and covered it with ink by tapping the ink pad on it till it was covered. I then spritzed it with water twice and pressed it directly on my trimmed piece of cardstock. I learned that for this technique, paper choice is very important. I had originally used my usual white cardstock, but because I was using water, it completely absorbed it and went all splotchy. I would recommend a paper meant for watercolouring. For this I used a mixed media paper that was perfect and gave me the results I was looking for.


All that was left was to add some foam to the back of them to give them a bit of definition and pop them up on the card base. That's it! I wanted to keep them nice and simple, to let the inking techniques take centre stage. I know the perfect person that I'm going to gift them to!

Supplies Used:
- Altenew Botanical Garden stamp set
- Altenew Birthday Builder stamp set
- Altenew Aqualicious, Warm Sunshine, Coral Berry and lavender Fields mini ink pads
- Canson Mix Media 120lb paper
- clear acrylic block
- Lawn Fawn Black Licorice dye ink pad
- paint brush
- white fun foam
- misc white card base
- water spritzer
Easy Die Cutting Techniques - AECP Journey
Hello and welcome back! Today's card or rather cards I should say, is all about easy die cutting techniques. This is class #9 out of 10 for this level and then I get to my final assignment for level 1. I have really enjoyed them all thus far and am learning so much! If you're a card maker then you really should check out the classes that Altenew has to offer. You can take as many or as few as you'd like and they have so many different ones to offer.
ETA...I have lost some of my photos when I changed blog providers, so there aren't as many as before.
For this class I decided to get out my alcohol inks and do some inlaid diecutting. What is inlaid die cutting you may ask? It's pretty much when you die cut an image from one piece of paper and then cut the same image from another piece. You then remove the image cut from one piece and place it in the other...I hope that makes sense. Alcohol inks are a pretty amazing medium to use and you get a different result each and every time. For these inks however, you don't want to use a regular cardstock or paper, as it is too porous and the inks will absorb right away into the paper and not give you the desired effect you are trying to achieve. For these inks I use Yupo paper. It's a mixed media paper that has a plastic coating to it and for that reason the inks do not absorb into, but rather they sit on top of the paper. This allows the inks to move around and do their magic. A quick tip when using alcohol inks....if you happen to to get them on your hands, which you are bound to do, just rub some hand sanitizer on your hands and the alcohol will remove it no problem. Oh and also make sure you are using the inks in a well ventilated area, as the fumes from the alcohol can be a bit strong after awhile.


So for the second card as I didn't want the pieces to go to waste, I reversed what I did on the previous card and put the inked hello die cut into the white background. All it needed was a secondary sentiment and a few mixed gold sequins and there you have it...easy peasy!

For the 3rd card I had a piece of alcohol inked paper that I had made at first that I wasn't that crazy about, set aside. It was still in the same colours, but it just wasn't sitting right with me when I made it. So I grabbed my cube cover die that I am a bit obsessed with right now (there are so many possibilities with it) and die cut the inked panel and also a piece of white cardstock. I adhered the white die cut to a piece of fun foam and added the little pieces in their proper spots on the white...a bit of paper piecing, if you will.



I really love how they all turned out! I feel they have a bit of a sophisticated feel to them...perfect for anyone! This was a wonderfully informative class, as I learned some new techniques and 1 in particular that I've been wondering how to do for awhile now, so I'm definitely going to attempt it soon, as I know now...thanks to Yana (the instructor) and her amazing skills!

Supplies used:
- Altenew Mega Hello die
- Altenew Cube Cover die
- Altenew Birthday Builder stamp set
- Altenew Mega Greetings stamp set
- Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 80lb cardstock
- Ranger Fine Detail Gold embossing powder
- Pinata Havana Brown, Burro Brown and Blanco alcohol inks
- Ranger Stream, Turquoise and Pitch Black alcohol inks
- Ranger Alcohol Blending Solution
- 92% alcohol
- heat embossing gun
- vellum
- mixed gold sequins
- white fun foam
- Lawn Fawn Black Licorice dye ink
Seasonal Scene Building - AECP Journey
Today's card is my next assignment on my AECP journey and it's all about scene building. This is definitely one of the areas that I struggle and have a hard time with. I absolutely love seeing all the gorgeous and absolutely adorable scene cards made by all the talented cardmakers out there on Instagram and I envy them so...I just can never seem to pull them off. But then this class came along and it is taught by the very talented Nichol Spohr. She is one of the many amazing cardmakers out there that I am always in complete awe of! She always makes the most incredible scene cards, so I was pretty excited to learn from her!
Celebration: Stencil Techniques - AECP Journey
Today I have 2 new cards made for my latest class on my AECP journey and it's all about stencil techniques. This class was taught by the lovely Laurel Beard. I do really enjoy watching her videos...she is always so creative and very down to earth. This class she taught us several different ways to use our stencils...there are so many techniques you can do with these very unassuming but incredibly verstatile tools. Every crafter/card maker needs at least 1 or 5 of these in their craft toolbox and there are so many different ones out there as well! Both of my cards use the same main stencil, Altenew's Mega Bloom, but have very different looks.
ETA...I have lost some photos, so some posts don;t have as many.

All that was left was to pop up the sentiment on the card front using a piece of black foam tape and add a bit more sparkle to it, using my fave sequins from Pretty Pink Posh. I used a few of the sparkling clear and a few of which I cannot remember the name of (I really need to label them when I get them). And that's it! I wish you could see how pretty the sparkle is! You can see it a bit in the photo..it's a bit more subtle of a shimmer and perfect!


Thank you so much for stopping by today and spending a little bit of your day with me! I'd love to hear what you think of good or bad down below in the comments. Once again, thank you and until next time...take some time out to get crafty and have a great day!
Supplies Used:
- Altenew Mega Bloom stencil
- Altenew Elegant Swirls stencil
- Altenew Painted Butterflies stamp set
- Altenew Jet Black, Dew Drops, Aqualicious, Teal Cave, Rose Quartz and Puffy Heart inks
- The Ton Timeless Icons Sentiment stamp set
- Ranger Texture Paste Transparent Gloss
- WOW Embossing Powder Neutral Ultra Shimmer
- My Favorite Things Black & White Striped 6x6 paper pad
- Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 80lb cardstock
- random white card base
- Pretty Pink Posh Sparkling Clear and misc sequins
- Lucys Little Things Ballerina Mix sequins
- Taylored Expressions Blending Brushes
- 3M foam tape
- Misc. black foam tape
- Ranger Multi Medium Matte
You're my favourite person
You are definitely one of my favourite people if you get this card! I'm back with another card similar to yesterdays, but different. And I'm also linking this up to the card challenge over at Papercraft Challenges.

Pastel Hello
Hello and welcome back! Today I have a pretty pastel rainbow card to share! I've decided to play along with a few challenges today. Just Us Girls, Melissa's Fab Friday Feature, bastel-traum , Country View Challenges and Papercraft Challenges.
Christmas in July
I've decided to start joining in on more card challenges and what better one than Christmas in July! I'm joining in 2 challenges for this one....AAA Cards and ABC Christmas Challenge. Over at https://aaacards.blogspot.com/ the challenge for this week is made in a minute with the optional twist of Christmas in July and over at http://abcchristmaschallenge.blogspot.com/ it's all about no fuss or over the top Christmas cards.
