Donna T Crafting: AECP Level 2 - Magical Marker Techniques

It's no secret that I LOVE to use alcohol markers. When I came back to cardmaking earlier this year, I discovered these and was instantly in love with them. This course was definitely something I looked forward to in order to get even more ideas on how to use my markers I've been collecting.

For today's project, I had an idea in my head, but had to pivot as it was not turning out the way I wanted. But that is okay. Sometimes pivoting gives us something even more fun!

I started with a white card panel. I scribbled my alcohol markers on my glass mat in a row and spritzed them with alcohol and then tried running a brayer through this and onto my panel. While this transferred, it was not the look I was trying for. So, then I tried again, with just spraying with some alcohol and then some water. Again, not the look I was looking for.

Finally, I realized I should use some watercolor paper. I put my marker color on my mat and then sprayed with a little alcohol and a lot of water. Then I dipped my paper into this and I certainly was getting closer. I dipped a few more times, added a little more water, dipped the paper, wiped off some standing water and I finally had something I could work with.

But I did not throw away the other panels. They end up coming into use later.

I then used the Altenew Inspiring Quotes: Step Stamp set and stamped the sun and one set of the mountains. I then masked off the side of the mountain, to add another, but not to have them overlapping. I wanted these to be pretty long for the length of my card.

After this, I colored in the sun with yellows and then used some violet colors to do the mountains. After I finished the coloring, I again took my alcohol and spritzed it over the mountains. As it seeped into the paper, the mountains would lighten. I did this several times, taking it slow, so I could get the look I wanted. I wanted a little shading from the drops on the mountains in places and eventually got to this look.

I then cut out my sun and mountains and began assembling. This is where one of the extra panels I made came in. My mountains were 4 3/4" long, so I cut my watercolor cardstock panel to 3 1/2 x 4 3/4". I then took the sentiment and carefully stamped this onto the panel using my black ink and stamping several times lightly so the letters were still crisp.

I did not just want white under my main panel, so I took one of the panels I made before and cut it to 4 x 5 1/4" to layer on top of my white A2 base.

I put my watercolor cardstock panel on foam and put it on top of this. I put my mountains and sun on some foam as well to give them some dimension.

I think this card is really pretty and I like the different ways I used my markers to make this. The look is totally different than ones I did previously (you can see my previous blog post where I used the same stamp set but with dye ink and mica sprays for the background blending).