Hello Friends and welcome to Class No. 2! Slowly, but surely, I am moving this along.

• 

• 

• 

For today I chose a class called Quick & Simple Cards for Everyday Crafting and this class was held by Laurie Willson. Wonderful class, right up my alley and I truly enjoy every minute of it.

Featured Items in today’s cards:

• Dotted Diamonds Stamp Set by Altenew
• Sentiment Strips 2 Stamp Set by Altenew
• Pinstripe Stamp Set by Altenew
• Permanent Black Dye Ink by Altenew
• Silver Stone Dye Ink by Altenew
• Ink Blending Tool – Large by Altenew

I the very beginning of the class Laurie talked about creating sentiment strips and how to actually create multiple strips at one time. She used the Sentiment Strips 2 stamp set by Altenew to create these strips and what she did was that she evenly spaced them in the MISTI using a ruler and the grid on the mat and then stamped them all at once and then cut them with a paper trimmer.

I found this technique to be most helpful, but I did it somewhat differently. A while back a purchased sets of amazing stamps and dies from Taylored Expressions called Simple Strips and these are one of the essential items in my craft room. There is one big stamp with a bunch of sentiments on it and there is a coordinating die that will cut those sentiments for you, and you end up with a bunch of sentiments at once, which is wonderful!

Since I was going to use the same stamp set – Sentiment Strips 2 in my project and I wanted to speed up the process of cutting and also use what is in my stash as much as possible, I realized that the best way to do this is to create a template first that I could then use over and over again. I simply did some dry embossing and my template was created in no time! I then put the template in the MISTI and lined up the sentiments with the little embossed areas on my template; I then closed the door on my MISTI, removed the template, put my paper in the MISTI, inked up the sentiments and, voila, my sentiments were done! I then simply aligned the die and I ended up with a bunch of sentiments. Oh, man was I happy with this! I really have to give one big thanks to Laurie for inspiring me to do this! I mean, how brilliant is this?

After my sentiments were done, it was time for cards!

This card created by Laurie Willson was my inspiration.

This truly is a simple and quick technique and that is what I love most about this class. I first created two card panels, I simply cut the paper to a little bit smaller than 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 size (or A2 size) and used a masking tape to mask off the area that I wanted to stay white and I used the grid lines on my craft mat from Altenew to help me line up the tape. I then simply inked up a blending brush and applied ink on the paper. Before I started stamping I separated the sentiment part from the background stamp. I do this to all of my background stamps because it’s much easier to handle. This way when I’m using the background stamp I can only remove one piece of acetate from the stamp and use a removable adhesive to temporary adhere it to the MISTI. I just find it easier this way, but you can keep your stamps together if you prefer it that way. Next, it was time for stamping. I used Permanent Black Ink by Altenew for this, and my backgrounds were done. I then stamped the sentiments from the Pinstripe Stamp Set also by Altenew and added my precut sentiment strips. I then glued everything onto the card base and embellished with red jewels for some contrast and interest.

And that was it! Simple and quick! I love, love, love this technique! There is so much you can do with this and it simply does not require anything too special, mostly things that you already have in your craft room and I hope this inspire you to do something similar.

Thank you so much for visiting me today, it truly means a lot!

Take care, stay safe and I will see you soon with a new blog post!