Arched Foliage Craft Your Life Project Kit : Two looks SO easy!
Hi and welcome back to the Altenew Blog and YouTube channel! Today's post is focusing on the beautiful Craft Your Life Project Kit Arched Foliage set. It's a big, bold branch of foliage (as the name might have given away) and the kit comes with coordinating layering stencils for easy peasy colouring, as well as a 3D embossing folder to make a gorgeous background.
I tend to forget to say hi, it's Erica back on the blog, hi, hello. How are you? Ready to flex that creative muscle a little and have some fun? I had an idea I thought would be interesting to try as I haven't done this in a long time, and that's to use the inspiration on the back of the packaging for one of the cards, and then go a bit Erica-esque for the second. Sounds like a fun idea, doesn't it?
On the back of the Arched Foliage stamp set there is an inspiration card and it lists the ink colours used, and they are Desert Night, Sweet Leaf and Silver Stone so naturally I grabbed those. I decided to use the layering stencils first, and I have no explanation for this. Don't ask me why, I don't know… Anyway, I started ink blending with the Arched Foliage layering stencils and I also used the SlimGripSticky Mat Black to hold the card stock and stencils in place. It's SUPER sticky, nothing is moving while you use these!
These two colours, Desert Night and Sweet Leaf, create this amazing sort of glow when gently ink blended together. It really is a stunning combination! I went for quite a soft blend, but if you like brighter colours you can always add more ink and build it up a bit more.
Next it was time to stamp the Arched Foliage outline stamp over the ink blending, and this is where it really pays off to take your time to line it up perfectly. Don't rush this stage, OR stamp it up first and then do the ink blending over the stamped outline. I used the StampWheel 2.0 for this of course, because there is absolutely no way I could be able to stamp this without a stamping tool. It wouldn't even be worth trying it, to be honest.
I used Permanent Black Ink for the Arched Foliage outline on this card, as I thought it might make the colours pop even more. Which I think it does. You can compare it to the Silver Stone Fresh Dye ink I used for the second card, and let me know what you think.
For the background for this foliage branch I wanted to bring in the 3D embossing folder and instead of ink blending a piece of card stock in Silver Stone ink, I got the closest colour I had in Crafty Necessities Colored Card stock and that was Morning Frost. It really looks so awesome with all that delicious texture on it!
While I had my die-cutting machine and the 3D embossing sandwich on hand, I thought why not make another one while I'm at it? This time in white card stock, and then I ink blended some Silver Stone Fresh Dye Ink on top of it to add some more interest to it.
After cleaning off the Arched Foliage layering stencils I got another piece of card stock out, as well as a bunch of different inks. This time we are going to go fantasy foliage rather than green and lush. From top to bottom, the colours used are Sea Breeze, Sweet Leaf, Citrus Burst, Baby Pink and Wisteria Fresh Dye Ink.
For this foliage image I did the same thing and ink blended with the layering stencils, and if you think it's intimidating to ink blend a rainbow with layering stencils, don't worry. It's actually really simple as you don't have to keep track of what colour to use where. You simply use the same one on the same area, with all the stencils. Check out the Youtube video if you are unsure what I mean.
With a soft, pastel rainbow done, I used the stamp on top. Again, take your time to line up the outline stamp! For this one I was contemplating heat embossing the outline with Platinum embossing powder, which I think would have looked absolutely gorgeous. It's another thing to add to my ‘try that later' list!
On this gorgeously colourful and soft foliage branch I thought black ink would be far too harsh, so I went with the Silver Stone Fresh Dye Ink instead. Soft but solid enough to show the details and bring the image to life, don't you think? It makes such a difference from the image when it was just ink blended.
With both of the foliage images ink blended and stamped, I cut them out with the coordinating diecut, which is so satisfying! The rainbow one is full sized, whereas the blue/green one is perfectly sized for an A2 card front as I used an A2 sized panel. I added 1/4″ wide Instant Dimension Foam Tape on the back of the blue/green foliage branch to give it some height. That stuff is so great and I'm totally obsessed with it!
The bigger one I decided to cut up (I know, insert shocked gasps of horror here!!) but I wanted to add as much as possible of it to the card, and it was the only way to make it fit on an A2 card. Now, I could have made a slimline card and kept the image intact, but did I think of that? No, I did not. Or at least not before I had already gone snip-snip on my foliage branch.
I don't think it's overly obvious it's been cut up though, in all honesty, it does blend together pretty well. Or maybe all those Stellar Sequins in Clear Iridescent are blinding me with their amazing sparkle? These pretties are coming to the Altenew shop in June so make sure to keep an eye out!
All the sentiments are from the Arched Foliage stamp set, and they have been cut out using the coordinating diecuts. The sentiment banner on the blue/green foliage one is such a good one, and I felt like it worked perfectly with the ‘hugs' I had picked out.
Both of these cards were finished off with a generous sprinkling of Stellar Sequins in Clear Iridescent and I don't regret adding so many! A bit of bling has never hurt anyone, and life is short so let's make it a sparkly one!
With that, I'm all done for today but I hope you have enjoyed this post and get a chance to watch the YouTube video too!
With love and light, creativity and sparkle,
from Erica
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