Hello Sunshine Layout

Okay. Deep Breath. Today I'm just going to out myself as a novice, but I do so in good faith that will benefit others. Alright, here goes – Prior to joining the Altenew team I had never seen, let alone used layer stamps. When my first sets arrived I stared at them in wonderment, unsure exactly how to tackle the problem. The card team make it look SO easy. I've since come to discover it IS easy and a whole lot more forgiving than you'd think.

The first place you should look for information on any stamp technique is the Altenew YouTube Channel. Honestly, it will blow your mind with the genius tutorials the Creative Team have come up with there. There are also many examples of how to use the layer stamps and before too long I felt confident to dive right in.

One night after Eva had gone to bed, I pulled out the Beautiful Day stamp set and grouped my inks in colours, then by shade. Starting with the lightest pink (Frosty Pink) I stamped a whole bunch of ‘base' peony stamps on to a piece of the solar white cardstock. Followed closely by the mid detail stamp using the Blush ink, before using the darker shade (Cotton Candy) for the fine detail stamp. The finishing touch is to stamp the outline in the Jet Black and you have yourself a stunning homemade embellishments. I was worried about how they would look if I didn't get the alignment perfect, but it turns out the tiny little offsets just make them all unique. I was having so much fun that I just went ahead a made a whole lot of blue/purple ones too (Arctic, Soft Lilac, Lavender Fields).

As funny as it is to watch a left handed person try to fussy cut flowers with tiny right-handed scissors, I choose instead to take the easy way out and use the Beautiful Day Die Set. All in all I made and cut out 10 flowers in under 30 minutes.

The layout came together in about the same time over again. I matted my photos on the pattern paper, then slipped my die cut flowers under the border between the pattern paper and the cardstock, before trimming off the overhanding petals. I used a leftover Maggie Holmes Sticker for the title before deciding that the top of the page seemed very bare.

I used the Beautiful Day Leaf Outline Stamp to create a border with the Jet Black ink. I choose not to fill it in because I didn't want to add anymore another color to the layout. A few lines of journalling and the layout done. Told you it was easy. The moral of story is layer stamps are not to be feared. So if you haven't already given them a go, why not try them in your crafting time this week?

Aimee Xx