Sketch Challenge Design Inspiration – SC744 – Featuring Altenew Academy Project

Another design sample as part of the Splitcoast Stampers Sketch Challenge Guest Design Team!  I have participated in these challenges basically since I found SCS, and to have been given the amazing opportunity to contribute a card to the weekly inspiration roundup that goes along with it is humbling and I am incredibly grateful, excited, and, well… nervous! LOL

Current and past sketch challenges, as well as all of the details, can be found here.  Past sketch challenge design team samples I have created can be found here and also in my gallery on SplitCoast.

Here is my card for this week’s sketch challenge at SCS!

Last year I was accepted into the Altenew Educator Certification Program (AECP) and ended up reaching level 1 certification by last fall.  This year, I’m working on level 2!  I recently finished their Creative Watercolor Media course, and this card is also my final project for that fun course.  There is SO much you can do with watercolor when it comes to cardmaking, and this course was a wonderful summary of several popular – and surprisingly easy – techniques!  In addition, as I did last year, I am participating in Altenew’s Celebrating Parents Card Drive.  It’s a truly wonderful opportunity to participate with other crafters in spreading some handmade love to lonely men and women in nursing homes.  I hope you’ll consider joining in and touching the lives of the elderly – you have until April 29th to do so!  More details can be found on the Altenew blog post about this year’s drive.

For this card, I used distress inks in a watercolor wash background to mimick the kind of lovely sunrises I have witnessed on several Spring mornings in the past few weeks.  Those sorts of beautiful skies always warm my heart, so I hope this does the same for the recipient. 🙂 (I had a really, REALLY hard time capturing the watercolor wash background in the photographs I took for this post. Sorry for the picture overload, but I hope that among the pictures you are able to at least get sort of an idea of what it looks like in person, which is just a soft, beautiful sunrise type background.)

For added interest and glitz, I used my Wink of Stella glitter brush pen to add glitter to the pumpkin pie and crisp cantaloupe panels. It’s a subtle little bit of just enough ‘something’ to take the card to a better level.

At first when I started this project I intended to restamp the flower silhouette image after finishing my watercolor, but I ended up leaving it as-is because I rather like what the texture in the silhouette itself does to the finished card.  To tie the card together and finish it off, I stamped portions of the smaller flowers and leaves from the floral stamp in this set in versamark ink on the band-like panel from the sketch. I then popped the main image up off of the rest of the design with foam mounting tape.

THANKS so much for dropping by!  I hope you’ll take the time to say hello!

Blessings,

Chrissy

Title: SC744 Celebrating Parents Card Drive 2019

Keywords: SC744, Watercolor, AECP, Creative Watercolor Media, #AltenewCardDrive

Stamps: Inspired by Nature, All Holidays (inside sentiment)

Ink: Momento Tuxedo Black, Tim Holtz Distress Inks (mustard seed, carved pumpkin, picked raspberry, seedless preserves), Versamark

Paper: Cold-pressed watercolor paper, Stampabilities “kraft,” Crisp Cantaloupe, Pumpkin Pie

Paper Size:   A2

Technique: Watercolor wash

Accessories: Wink of Stella Glitter Brush in clear, foam mounting tape, watercolor brush, glass mat