AECP Celebration Stencil Techniques

Hello! I’m back today with a fun card created as part of my Altenew Educator Program courses. My latest course was Celebration Stencil Techniques.

I think stencils are greatly under rated in the crafting world. In reality they are very versatile tools for creating some amazing projects.

Celebration Stencil Techniques teaches several different uses for stencils such as stamping with them, ink blending, using with embossing paste and even creating your own stencils using die cuts.

I know I seem to always overlook the use of stencils in my card making, but since taking the class I have tons of new inspiration and ideas and I’m sure I’ll be using them more frequently.

My card features the Warp Speed stencil from Altenew. I’m not gonna lie, I bought this stencil because it reminded me of Star Wars, LOL! You know, when the Millennium Falcon makes the jump to light speed and you see the stars turn into lines of light. Yes, I’m a geek girl at heart! Now, someone just needs to create a Millennium Falcon stamp….anyone?

Anyway, I wanted to use the stencil in a way that would draw attention to my focal image from the Happy Bloom stamp set and the Warp Speed stencil is perfect for this.

I placed my stencil over a piece of cardstock cut to 4 x 6 inches. I cut it a bit bigger than my card front would be so I’d have plenty of area to get a smooth ink blend. I used a bit if Pixie spray which gives the stencil a bit of a light tack to hold my stencil in place.

First, I used an ink blending brush to blend on some Dew Drop and Sweet Leaf inks from Altenew over my stencil. Both of these colors are really soft, almost pastel and so it created a nice soft ink blended background. While a plain ink blended background would have been just fine, I really wanted something that would pop on my background.

I left the stencil in place to let the ink dry onto my cardstock a bit. While that drying I stamped my focal image.

Using the large flower arrangement with the banner from the Happy Bloom stamp set, I stamped with some Altenew Jet Black ink onto some Neenah Solar White Cardstock. I used my MISTI so I could stamp a couple of times to get a good impression.

With my image stamped, I was able to break out my Altenew Artist markers and color the fun floral images on this stamp. Since the card would be used for a birthday card, I tried to keep the colors bright.

When my image was completely colored I stamped the Happy Birthday sentiment onto the banner using some Versamark Ink and sprinked on some Hero Arts Tiger Lilly embossing powder. It’s a really pretty shade of orange that just pops on the image.

Next, I fussy cut out the stamped image and even cut out a few of the areas between flowers so that my background would show through where possible. Once everything was fussy cut, I traced around whole image with my B002 Altenew marker to give it a more finished look.

Getting back to my stencil where my ink blending had some time to dry, I used some Irridescent Glitz Glitter gel from Gina K Designs and smoothed over my stencil onto the ink blended background with a pallet knife. The Glitz Glitter gel is transparent enough that it allows whatever color is behind it to show through. The gel almost takes on the color of whatever is underneath it. The end result is gorgeous don’t you think? When I’d smoothed over all areas of the stencil and had fully covered it, I carefully peeled it away from the background. I washed my stencil right away with some soap and water as well as my pallet knife. I set my background aside to dry for about 30 minutes.

Once it was completely dry to the touch, I used some dimensional foam to add my colored florals to the front of the stenciled background.

My panel was layered over some blue cardstock and onto an A2 sized card base made from some Neenah Classic Crest 110 lb cardstock.

I am so in love with the end result of this card! It was so much fun to learn the various techniques in the Celebration Stencil Techniques class. I really am seeing my stencils in a whole new light and look forward to using this versatile crafting tool on more card projects in the future.

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you’ve enjoyed my card. You can check out the Altenew Celebration Stencil Techniques class here: https://altenew.com/collections/altenew-academy-classes/products/celebration-stencil-techniques

Hugs!

Tonya