Donna T Crafting: AECP Level 1 - Clean and Simple Boutique Cards

The Clean and Simple Boutique cards class from Altenew had a lot of great ideas for creating "simple" cards that make a big impact. This is especially important when you need a card quick. I tried several of the ideas from the class, but wanted to share one today that I had been wanting to try for a few weeks now.

The lesson within in the class was about Foiling and Metallic details. I LOVE to foil and use my Minc machine a LOT. However, I am usually foiling on preprinted toner sheets, so I am limited to the items that I have in my stash or that I can purchase. Recently, I had seen someone mention foiling using embossing powder. This sounded like a game changer to me......to be able to stamp an image and then foil it......OH THE POSSIBILITIES!!!

To be fully transparent, prior to the class, I gave this a try on my own and it failed miserably!! It was a very distressed look to say the least. So, I was very glad to see this lesson.

The first thing I did was take some watercolor paper and used some dye ink (Catherine Pooler's Pixie Dust and Royal Treatment) mixed with a little water to cover my paper using a regular paint brush. I wanted this to be airy, so I did leave some lighter areas as well. I used my embossing tool to dry my paper once I was satisfied with the result.

Creating full sheets of watercolor backgrounds can be done ahead of time and you can then quickly grab them when needing a quick card.

Next, I picked the Altenew Build-A-Flower: Bearded Iris stamp set. I chose a shading layer for both the flower (A3) and the leaf (C3) and laid this out on my card. Then I used a stamping platform to pick these up and used a darker ink (Catherine Pooler's Royal Treatment for the flower and Eucalyptus for the leaf) to stamp these shading areas. I did use my heat tool for a quick pass to ensure this ink dried.

Now for the fun part!! I used a new Anti-static tool I had just received on my cardstock. I then put down the outline of the flower and the leaf and stamped it using embossing ink (Versamark is what I used). I added my Embossing Powder (Brutus Monroe Foil Reactive Embossing Powder), tapped off the excess and used a small brush to try and clean off any stray bits. I used a purple foil sheet I had in my stash and ran it through my Minc machine twice to ensure it was adhering.

Well, you might be expecting magic, but when I pulled away the foil sheet, I was very disappointed. I had dots of foil everywhere. I guess I needed to check the image better. I was using 2 new products (the anti-static tool and the Foil Reactive Embossing Powder).

Luckily, I had a lot more area to work with on my watercolor paper, so I decided to try one more time. This time, I used my Pink and Main Magic Anti-static Brush that I use regularly. I did look a lot closer once the powder was on and only had a few stray pieces to get off. The results, the second time were much better. I had probably 3-4 stay dots of foil and I used a sharp edge to lightly scrape those off.

I did feel like the leaf needed a bit more green, so I used Catherine Pooler's Lime Rickey with water and watercolored in the open pieces on the leaf. I then stamped the sentiment using Royal Treatment ink (sentiment is from Altenew's Blissful Bud stamp set).

I debated whether to mount this card on white cardstock, a dark purple, both colors or no background color. I like the look of at least one layer for a more finished look. After laying each down, I found I really liked the look of the dark purple as the card base.

Overall, I am pleased at how this turned out. I think I can still perfect my techniques, but this does open a lot more possibilities in my foiling adventures.