Lesson 1 – Beyond Basic Background with Lydia Evans

Hello Everyone and welcome back!

For today I have two simple and quick cards for you. For my project inspiration I chose a card made by Lydia Evans. Lydia is one of Altenew’s educators and people who are on their design team. Her classes and YouTube channel are absolutely awesome and truly helpful.

Now, what Lydia did to create this background was that she first created a grid on her panel and then individually stamped each dot. I love this technique, truly, but I wouldn’t be able to call my cards “simple and quick” if I created them this way. So I used a different approach:

As usual, I like to start off with ink swatches. I need to make sure that I like the combination of colors. So, as I mentioned earlier I made two cards, and all I did was I changed color combinations. For one color combo I used Frayed Leaf and Arctic dye inks from Altenew; and for the other combination I used Coral Berry and Cotton Candy, also from Altenew. Now, when I look back, I should have used something that has more contrast, like purple or even orange, but it is ok. Next time I will definitely try some other combinations. After I was done stamping, it was time for a sentiment. I used a stamp from Altenew and cut it in half because I needed a word “birthday” and this particular style perfectly matched the look I was going for. This is a great way to make more out of your stamps. Do not be afraid to cut them or modify them, you can always put them together and use them as intended. Since I only needed a couple of sentiments, there was no need to use a stamp positioner. For this, I simply used a stamping block and just stamped several of them on a piece of scrap paper. I used VersaMark embossing ink and Alabaster White embossing powder by Brutus Monroe. I then simply trimmed the sentiments using a wonderful paper guillotine by Tim Holts. I then die cut circles using circle dies from Waffle Flower and a word “Happy” from a glitter card stock, and the die that I used is from PinkFresh Studio. I then assembled everything together and the cards were done!

This was a fun and super quick project. Definitely something I love and enjoy doing!

If you have any questions or comments, let me know; and don’t forget to connect on social media!

Cheers!

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