Hello Crafty Friends! Today’s post is a special one for me. This card is for my 10th and final class for Level 2 of the AECP (Altenew Educator Certification Program). I am so excited to get started on my Level 2 challenge next. The Masking Unleashed class by Svitlana Shayevich was so helpful for me. I struggle with masking and Svitlana had some great tips to help me. Her basic masking and ink blending with masking helped me make this card look the way imagined it. I highly recommend checking this class out.

For this card I used the following:

• Darling Rose – Altenew
• Crisp Dye Ink Mini Cubes (Peach Perfect, Rouge, Coral Bliss, Pink Pearl, Parrot, Olive, Moss, Sea Breeze) – Altenew
• Antique Gold Crisp Embossing Powder – Altenew
• Satin Gold Sequins – Altenew
• Watercolor 36 Pan Set (Jet Black) – Altenew
• Watercolor Brush– Altenew
• Neenah 80 lb. Solor White Classic Crest
• I-Brush Ink Applicator Brushes – I-Crafter
• VersaFine Onyx Black Ink
• Post It Notes

I love that Altenew offers bundles with some of their stamp sets that include a stamp set, coordinating dies and masking stencils. I used the gorgeous Darling Rose Bundle for this one layer card. I don’t make one layer cards often but this card came together so perfectly in just one layer. I have always struggled with white areas next to a masked image. Svitlana had great tips to avoid this and it worked so great. I will be masking more often now. There are great masking papers available on the market but I just grabbed a 3×3 inch Post It Note that had sticky on the entire back of each note.

• I stamped my first image from the Darling Rose Set with VersaFine Onyx Black Ink on Neenah 80 lb. cardstock. I also stamped this on to a post it note as I used more than one image. The bundle only comes with one masking stencil for the rose. I cut on the inside edge of the stamped rose on the post it note to create a second mask.
• I put the masking stencil rose over my stamped image and stamped another rose next to it. I adhered my rose masking stencil down with a little tape. I followed this same procedure for the all leaves. I used a combination of the masking stencil and my post note masks to get the entire image stamped.
• Once everything was stamped in black I used my masking stencils (both positive and negative) and post it note masks to mask off images around where I would be ink blending.
• I ink blended the floral images with Crisp Dye Ink Mini Cubes in Peach Perfect, Rouge, Coral Bliss, and Pink Pearl using my I-Brush Ink Applicator Brushes. These are really small and fit the spaces perfectly. I made one rose image a little darker than the other.

• I then used my positive and negative masking stencils to ink blend the leaves. I used Crisp Dye Ink Mini Cubes in Parrot, Moss, and Olive for these.
• Once done I covered all the images in masks and ink blended a blue background in Sea Breeze around part of my images.
• I left the masks over the roses and used the Jet Black from the Watercolor 36 Pan Set to splatter some black over the background and leaves.
• Next I stamped the sentiment with some VersaMark ink and poured Antique Gold Crisp Embossing powder over the stamped sentiment and set it with a heat tool. Make sure to use an anti static product before stamping with the VersaMark so embossing powder doesn’t stick to anything but your sentiment.
• I used some Satin Gold Sequins to add a little bling to the panel. I adhered these with liquid glue.
• When dry I added this panel onto a top folding heavy weight card base.

I am so happy that the tips and tricks I learned in this class helped me get a great looking masked image. The masking stencils included in this bundle make masking a bit quicker and much easier. The masking stencils clean up really well by running them under water. I hope you are inspired to give masking a try. Thanks for stopping by!!