Altenew's Beautiful Details Course

 Hello!!!  Thanks for following along on my Altenew Certification Journey!  This has been the most fun and I do so enjoy trying new things!  This week, I have been focusing on the Beautiful Details Course taught by Marika Rahtu.  And all that I can say is, "WOW!!!  What an artist she is!!!"  There is no hope of my ever being able to come anywhere close to creating the beauty that she is able to create.  BUT...my assignment is to try my hand at the techniques she demonstrates, not to duplicate her cards.  Challenge accepted!

So I set out with an idea for a card format that I saw Natasha Foote demonstrate on YouTube.  It is called a Column Card.  I thought that it was unusual and of course that made me gravitate right toward it.  LOL!  Not only is the format unusual, but it was a lot of fun to create.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  First I needed to create the focal points of my card.  I selected the Happy Flowers stamp and die set and the Stunning Cosmos stamp and die set.  Using Lisa Horton's Cloud 9 Silver Shine Metallic Pigment Ink, I stamped the background and detail portions of the Happy Flower stamps and the detail of the Stunning Cosmos stamps.  Then I took my Poetique watercolor brush pens and my colored pencils and attempted to give some depth and dimension to these images.

Considering the design of this card, I needed to create a sentiment, so I stamped and embossed a neat message using Ranger's Black Sparkle embossing powder.  Then I used Tumbled Glass Distress Oxide, Mermaid Lagoon Distress Ink, and Teal Tempest Fresh Dye Ink to make the sentiment emblem stand out from the white background of the card.  This area gave me a little workout because I didn't think I would ever get it to where I felt like it fit with the blue panels of the rest of the card!  But I kept on blending until I finally reached a point where I felt that the sentiment emblem complimented the focal points of the card.  Then I decided that the emblem still needed some bling factor, so I glued tiny holographic stars all around the sentiment.

Still working on the inside card panel, I took two of the Stunning Cosmos blooms that I had colored and strategically placed them along the right-hand bottom portion of the card panel.  Then I added glue to the centers of the blooms and sprinkled Diamond Dust on them for more bling.  And then I ran a bead of blue along the third Cosmos bloom, dipped it into the jar of Diamond Dust, and then glued it to the panel as well.

At last it was time to consider the "Column" portion of the card.  I played around with my Happy Flower images until I thought that the arrangement worked and glued down the top and bottom flowers.  Then I popped up the center bloom and tucked leaves in as well.  For the final step, I added Diamond Dust to the center of all three flowers.

This card will fold flat for mailing, and then when the recipient opens the envelope, the card can be made to stand up for display!  I thought that was really neat, since I am a HUGE fan of overloading my desk area - no way you didn't know that!!!  So...That is how I made the card for the Beautiful Details class.  Thanks for taking a look!!