Donna T Crafting: AECP Level 2 – Beyond Basic Backgrounds

For the next AECP course, it covered creating beautiful backgrounds in several ways I had never seen. For my first project in this class, I decided to do something they called water bleaching.

Now, I had done some splatters with water, on water reactive ink, but I had never considered using a stamp for “bleaching” the background.

I started today with an A2 card panel and I ink blended using some light purples and blues. I used my Distress Oxide inks because I love the way these blend and I love the way these have reacted to water in the past. I added my lighter colors first, then added in a shade darker. Last, I came back with the lighter colors to ensure the blending of the colors.

My next step was to try the bleaching. I used the two flowers from the Altenew Queen Anemone Layering Stamp Set. I took the third image you lay down in the layer guide because it had some outline for the flower and put those on acrylic blocks. I sprayed water on my glass mat. Then I pushed my stamp into the water just like I would do with ink and then stamped on my inked background.

I did these randomly around the background and really like how the images bleached out the background. It turned out really nice.

Next I worked on my stamped images. I used the Altenew Queen Anemone Layering Stamp Set and created both flowers and 2 of each leaf available. I layered the colors following the layering guide provided. I used my pinks and purples for the flower and the greens for the leaves.

Since I do not have the dies for this set, I planned to use my Brother Scan ‘n Cut to cut out my stamped images. This started out as a good idea until my paper moved during cutting (totally my fault) and some of my flowers and leaves got cut on the sides and nothing was cut out. So, it was back to using scissors to fussy cut my images.

I cut my card panel to 4 x 5 ¼”. I placed the flowers and leaves on the card, some going off the side where I had issues from the cutting so I could just trim that part off. I added 3 leaves around each flower (using odd numbers is pleasing to the eye). I glued down the leaves and put the flowers on foam tape.

I stamped a sentiment from the Altenew Build-A-Garden: Pristine Peonies Stamp Set on some scrap white cardstock and cut it down. I put it on foam and added it between my flowers. I added some jewels from my stash.