Hey, I just taught a craft class!

In November of 2018, I embarked on a journey where I was not sure was going to lead; I became a participant in the Altenew Educator Certification Program. For the past 5 months I have been steadily working towards certification under the guidance and tutelage of Virginia Lu and Erum Tasneem who have been so gracious with their time and positive feedback. Throughout this journey, I have taken 25 classes at Altenew Academy, made 44 cards, one tag, four framed pieces of art and now taught one class. I feel proud of my accomplishments and happy to be able to share a love of crafty techniques to my friends and get them excited to try something new. Please read on for how the class went, the fun we had and what the students learned in the class. If you would like to read about how I prepared for the class, click here. Affiliate links are used in this post. If you choose to purchase through these links, I may receive a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you for your support.

The class started off by learning how to make a simple watercolor wash on paper using the watercolor brush markers. Students had their pre cut 4×6″ panels of watercolor paper where they added water about 3/4 of the way down the page with a 3/4″ flat brush. Color from the watercolor brush markers was added and then pulled down the page using the flat brush and clean water. Once the panel was dry, I used a Cuttlebug along with Altenew Bold Alphabet dies to cut out a bold word for their page. Participants really liked this technique and one person told me that this was a technique that really had a lot of bang for your buck as students were using leftover space on the panel to die cut other embellishments and words. One student made a card front out of the die cut negative.

After a short break, I explained the next two techniques at the same time. The space where you are teaching always effects how the class will flow. Due to only having three stamp platforms to share among 11 people and not wanting to cause a massive traffic jam, I explained technique 3 and 4 at the same time so people could rotate through either technique. For stamping with watercolor, I chose three floral stamp sets from Altenew that had images where multiple colors could be used. Students could pick from Altenew Fabulous You, Happy Together or Enchanted Iris stamp sets. I had three stations set up. At each station, the floral stamp was already mounted on the stamping platform. On the stamping platform, I had purple tape down so students would know where to place their sheet of paper. Mini Mister bottles were filled and ready to spritz. There was stamp cleaning solution and a microfiber cloth to clean off stamps between use. I also had the stamp packaging available which had an image of the stamp so students could see where to color. Students found this technique the most challenging because of the water spritzing. Some students added too much water which caused the colors to run and bleed. Other students were not getting a clear impression even after stamping and coloring multiple times. Everyone enjoyed using the stamp platforms and were amazed how easily it was to restamp the image multiple time. 

The last technique proved to be one of everyone’s favorites. Altenew makes great floral stamps and I used four of their stamp sets: Starry Flowers, Wonderland, Persian Motifs and Botanical Garden to emboss the images onto a 4×6″ panel of watercolor cardstock. Images were either embossed with Hero Arts gold embossing powder or stamped with Momento Tuxedo Black ink and then embossed with Hero Arts clear embossing powder. Each student was gifted an Altenew waterbrush which they could use along with the watercolor brush markers to paint their image. I showed students to get a lighter color wash to start by first laying down water onto their image. The embossing resists the color so the lines of the image stay visible regardless of the ink applied. After laying down water, adding just a drop of color from the Altenew watercolor brush markers is all that is needed for a soft wash; more color added makes the image darker. This was also a time I suggested for students to use their palettes to mix colors or even to test colors out before committing to them.  Students loved this part and the workroom got very quiet as students painted their images. After the class, I used the coordinating dies to cut out the images so they could be added to a layout. Most students remarked that they would like to do this technique again with some students remarking that they had to find their embossing paraphernalia they had used so long ago. I was really amazed at how quickly everyone took to painting and came up with some amazing flowers. 

This class was a lot of work in setting up, thinking through the plans and preparing each of the kits. I really enjoyed every minute, even the minutiae details. It was fun to share what I like to do with others and see them get as excited as I am as an idea forms into reality. I also appreciated sharing the products of one of my favorite companies, Altenew, who make products to make crafting easier and more accessible to everyone. The students were wonderful and really patient with sharing the materials, supporting each other and encouraging each others work. It was great teaching this class, I had a great time and I hope to have another opportunity in the future to share my love of creating.

Thank you for  joining me in learning about my first class. I had a great time and the participants were so fabulous and I enjoyed watching them really get into using the watercolor markers. Let me know in the comments below which technique you think would be your favorite to learn. Have a crafty day!