Altenew educators blog hop

Hello and thank you for joining me on this blog hop to celebrate The Altenew Educator Program and Love & Friendship. If you are following along on the hop, you have come from the talented Nandini Karmarkar of Paint, Paper, Scissors. Your next stop on the blog is the amazing Christine Pennington. If you get lost along the way, see the full list on the Altenew Card Blog.
I am excited and honored to be a part of a very selective group of such talented people. The Altenew Educator Program really helped me to gain confidence in my card making and helped set me on a path to teach others about the joy in making and sending cards. Each amazing Altenew Academy class taught me how to improve my skills and introduced me to new ways of looking at my crafting supplies. The support from the Altenew Educator Program Coordinators really helps boost your confidence, improve your card designs, as well as your photography and blogging skills. Watercoloring is a medium I struggled with but the Altenew Academy has three great watercolor classes that helped me to improve my skills: Watercolor Basics and Beyond, Watercolor Creative Media and Stunningly Simple Watercolor Techniques. I took all three of these classes and they were wonderful. 

Today I will be featuring the Altenew watercolor pan set which is a 36 half pan watercolor set that coordinates perfectly with the Altenew Inks. I made three cards for this blog hop that feature three ways to watercolor: with black pigment ink, white heat embossing and no line. Thank you for joining me on this hop to celebrate the Altenew Educator Program.

Watercoloring can be difficult to maintain the highlights and shadows within an image that give it depth. Stamping the image in black ink before watercoloring preserves the details of the image and makes it easier to watercolor. Altenew Obsidian Black Pigment ink does not react with watercolor and gives amazing detail and crispness to the images. 

Heat embossing an image either in white or clear allows for the detail of the stamp to be preserved and even creates wells for the watercolor to sit in and not migrate to other sections of the image. The embossing powder resists the watercolor and gives the image an ethereal look. 

No line watercoloring gives the impression that you drew and watercolored an image without stamping it first. No line watercoloring is difficult because you can lose the detail of the image and it just becomes a big blur. Stamping with Altenew Crisp Dye inks in the colors they will be watercolored helps to preserve the lines but since these are dye based inks, the stamp lines will disappear as the image is watercolored. Since Altenew’s inks all coordinate, I stamped the images with the lightest version of dye ink that coordinated with the final darkest image color.

The AECP was a transformative experience where I received great feedback, built industry connections and made friends with local crafters. If you’re interested in signing up, click this link to submit an application. For level one and two of certification, you will take ten classes and then submit a final project for each level. To become an educator, you will take additional classes and then teach a class. The program is self paced so you can take your time. Check out my first blog post on my journey becoming an educator. For a limited time, Altenew is having a 20% discount on level one and two classes. This is a great savings that doesn’t come around very often. Email me if you have any questions about the program.

Thank you for joining me on this blog hop and I hope you are feeling inspired to watercolor your images. I would love to hear in the comments below if you watercolor on your cards and which way works best for you: black ink, embossing or no line watercolor. 

Giveaway time!! Two ways to win!

Altenew is giving away a $30 gift certificate to 3 lucky winners! Please leave a comment on the Altenew Card Blog by 7/26/2019 for a chance to win.
Altenew will also draw a winner to receive a $15 gift certificate from the comments left on each designer’s blog from the blog hop list below. All winners will be announced on the Altenew blogs on 7/30/2019.
Here is the list of talented designers on this hop.

• Altenew Card Blog
• Terri Marie Koszler
• Michelle Ochoa Murray
• Maryam Sharara
• Amber Rain Davis
• Irina Fonina
• Teri Wilson
• Francine Dodwell
• Patty Mello
• Nenette S. Madero
• Vicki Finger
• Nandini Karmarkar
• Amy Hill <—- (you are here!)
• Christine Pennington
• Erum Tasneem