For the final challenge of the Altenew Educator Certification Program, I will be teaching a 2 hour card class full of techniques to 4-10 people. After the class, I will be blogging about how it went but I wanted to do a post before the class to discuss building an idea, setting up for a class and figuring how to break down ideas and make them accessible to others. Please read on for how I plan on teaching this class.

I’ve been playing around with water color for a little less than a year. I like the look but have trouble with the messy aspect of it. In Altenew’s class, Watercoloring Basics and Beyond, the instructor discussed the importance of letting the paint mix and blend freely. The last lesson encouraged free hand watercoloring without using stamps. When I watercolor, I typically just color in a stamped image. Watercoloring without having the stamped image as a guide freaked me out. In the spirit of just trying this out and learning something new, I decided to go for it. The class is designed to showcase the Altenew Watercolor Pan set. I don’t have this watercolor set so I used ink from the Altenew Watercolor Brush Markers instead. These markers are vibrant with rich colors. Please read on for how I put together this card. Affiliate links are used in this post. If you decide to purchase through these links, I may receive a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you your support.

Although cards are a 2-D art, I really try to add dimension to my cards. I typically achieve this through layering papers, die cuts and adding sequins. In the Altenew Academy class, One Layer Wonders, the instructor pushes the boundaries for how to achieve the look of dimension in only one layer. I took this challenge on and using the idea of drop shadows and lines to build a focal point throughout the image, I built a card using only one layer of paper. To be fair, I did do all the work on an A2 panel and then attached that panel to a card base. Please read on for how I was able to achieve dimension and depth using just one layer.