Color Advantage

Recently I took the Altenew course called “In The Mood For Color”. The instructor does a great job sharing how color can impact your mood as well as how your mood can impact the colors you select. I did practice creating cards just using the color family of the theme but selected those that I created in Blue (Calm, Tranquility) and Green (Soothing, Growth, Natural) to share with you. Both of those reflect my personality and the things I strive for more. I hope that comes through.

What’s more calm and tranquil than a butterfly?

Creating the parts:

1. Stamp the layers of the two large butterflies from the Altenew Painted Butterflies Stamp & Die Set using Altenew Sea Glass, Ocean Wave, and Desert Night Crisp Inks and then die cut or fussy cut them out.

2. Ink blend a small piece of cardstock using Altenew Dusk Crisp Ink and the die cut using Altenew Linear Crossroads.

3. Stamp a 4 x 5 ¼ panel using several of the smaller butterfly outline images using Sea Glass and Ocean Wave inks. Be sure to turn them in a variety of ways, switch up the ink you’re using, and also stamp some partially off of the panel. Try to create a background of lots of butterflies flitting around.

4. Use Ocean Wave ink to lightly edge the background panel with ink. This helps add dimension/pop.

Putting it all together:

1. Adhere the Linear Crossroads piece where you like on the background panel. I chose to glue mine down at an angle.

2. Glue the butterflies on the panel. I decided to use glue dots on the back to raise them up just a bit.

3. Stamp your sentiment using Dusk ink. I used Just Saying Hello from the Painted Butterflies stamp set.

4. Add a piece of foam to the back of the panel and adhere it to an A2 cardbase.

Watercoloring for me is soothing and combining stamping and giving it a watercolor twist was a lot of fun. For this card I used Distressed Oxides because they react really well with water and the oxides provide a bit more of a muted tone than the Distress Inks. Because “growth” and “natural” are associated with green, I selected the beautiful leaves in the Altenew Bitty Botanical Stamp Set.

Creating the parts:

1. Stamp a background on 4 x 5 ¼ watercolor paper (be sure it’s watercolor paper!) using the lovely leaves from the Altenew Bitty Botanical Stamp Set using Distressed Oxides in Twisted Citron, Cracked Pistachio, and Pine Needle.

2. Lightly dampen a paintbrush with water and touch it down on the leaves, gently flowing the water and activating the ink so that it appears to be watercolored. For added depth, you can mix in some of the colors on several of the leaves.

3. Allow the background to dry naturally. You’ll have much better, richer results if you don’t rush the drying time.

4. Cut a large circle from vellum using the Altenew Halftone Circles Die Set

5. Inkblend a small piece of cardstock using Distressed Oxide Twisted Citron and cut a smaller circle using the Halftone Circles set again.

6. Stamp the Happy Birthday sentiment from the Altenew Birthday Greetings Stamp Set using Distressed Oxide Pine Needles.

Putting it all together:

1. Glue the sentiment circle in the center of the velum circle.

2. Glue the vellum circle to the background being sure to only apply glue behind the sentiment.

3. Add a piece of foam on the back of the watercolored panel and adhere this to an A2 cardbase.

I really enjoyed taking a moment to consider the moods, the thoughts, and the emotions that color plays in the creation of these special gifts. I hope to be able to carry that along with me moving forward.

Let me know which of these is your favorite in the comments below!

The following are links to the tools I used for these projects.

Please note that some contain affiliate links which means I may earn a small commission when you click and purchase - at no additional cost to you! This helps to support my blog. Thank you!!