The Workshop and Student Projects!

It's kinda funny, the feedback that means most to me is actually the outcome of projects my students and workshop attendees take on :) It's overwhelming to meet with so many different people with only one thing in common, a drive to craft. It's rewarding Alhamdulillah. And here's what some of them came up with :)

Each attendee was provided with a 6x6 piece of paper from the Prima Marketing Inc Fairy Belle Collection. There was another coordinating sheet, a border, 2 mulberry roses, and an ornate die cut shape. They were to take these kits and use them to create a card or a project layout. Adding other elements, inks, stamps, etc was completely their discretion.

I wanted the projects to reflect the though process these guys put through and how studying a bit of placement and design helps. :)

This one is by Sundus. She cut out the silhuette of the floral corner, and utilized the butterflies as add ons. She added sentiments on remaining paper and used the coordinating paper as a background... The border below is inverted but does the job. Good effort kiddo! Love the precision. You've even balanced out the elementsand aligned everything.

 

This one is by Jaihan at the Pearlbox. *waves* She used a tan/mustard base, embossed the background, and distressed it to show the embossing. The background is the coordinating paper, and like Sundus, her project also has the silhuette cut out. Hers is however more evident with the orientation. She topped the isle with a little distressing, her sentiment, the flowers and a pearl drop. The ornate border has been distressed. Good Job. I personally love the sentiment label.. it turned out great with the roses.Needs some more value contrast, but looks great :) Jaihan created this as a card, which was loved and adored by the recepient. *thumbs up!*

 

This was Falak's project. Now for me, her attending the workshop as a cake crafter was pretty cool. And when she said what she learned at the workshop completely applied to what she did at home, it made me smile ear to ear! Alhamdulilah :)

She went a step fruther, and applied the embossing at home technique with laces she found lying around the house. She made her own paper rosettes with one of my tutorials and added adorable butterflies for dimension. She tried creating interest in the project by creating layers. Which is fab. There's bling too! We need a little work on which elements coordinate and match, but I am VERY happy to see you apply everything you learned that day :) Great Job Falak!

 

These projects have been carried out by the workshop attendees on their own. As initial projects, these are awesome! Makes me feel better as an instructor, and makes me super proud of them for grasping 3 hours of non stop craft talk! hehe.

 

The rest still need to submit their projects. Will add them as edits later :)

 

Productive Card Classes :)

Saturday's rescheduled Card Classes were an incredibly amazing experience, while my flu still annoyed the creepers out of me, it was a great learning and sharing time with my few, but great students. I wasn't strict about advanced registrations this time, nor did I promote the workshops as much as I did last time... I hadn't so much time this time around. :)

I wanted to share what my students pieced together today. Both from the Vintage Card class as well as the Stamped Card class.

For the vintage card class, I had laid out my vintage stamps, some archival ink, distressing ink, the adhesive, cutter and cardstock along with some printed and patterned paper. Some of it was Union Square by My Mind's Eye... and some were from Glitz. They were beautiful papers I thought would be fun to use for this class. My student did great putting these together, and that too on her own. We played around with placement, she made decisions on what looked better, what didn't work... what she liked and what more she wanted to do. She selected the stamps, inked and stamped them as well. I was there watching giving input as I could and critiquing where I thought appropriate.

I think it turned out fab! and that, too for her first attempt. :) She claims she hasn't creativity, and I proved her wrong. Hehe. Remember what I told you about aesthetics? *wink*

Great first class and first attempt, Alhamdulillah!

It was good to know, that she tried to make both cards look super different :)

For Stamped Cards, I had a very sweet kid join in. She has a super special passion for making cards... but becomes a little afraid when she has to put things down on the actual paper. I panicked initially, but after speaking to her about being spontaneous, and looking at compositions... why some work better than others, she tried a few and got to piece this together. We're working on her colors and she's doing a fab job really learning! Alhamdulillah. This is the piece she created after attempting a few.. this shows the idea of using stamps to create a background, middle ground and foreground... the butterflies were perfect here... there's some movement now :) Very proud of you kiddo! And very happy that you went home totally energized and excited about the work you put together today! ♥ The design was about keeping things simple.

While I had set out 4 card styles and techniques for the class, we focused on two. :) My student picked up on how to use clear and cling stamps, how to ink with different inks as well as render images and treat them with other media. We planned this out while I cut down card paper, I gave her 10 seconds to pick out a stamp she wanted to work with for the rendering and water coloring technique. I also wanted her to be more confident on choosing her colors and making decisions spontaneously while working, we chose a color scheme next. Initially she wanted purples and pinks, and decided to go for warmer colors instead. 

Throughout the process, we talked about how to make our compositions and layouts work by building on them with layers and color. She had already imprinted the stamp, and we wanted to build around it, instead of starting a new one. We did some mark making, which was new to her. Taught her a new way to shade and treat her images and textures. And she did great! We gave some washes to blend the water color, instead of the watercolor cakes, we used the pencils this time. Towards the end, we added one more layer of stamps to complete the card and balance out the composition... and this is what she put together. It's beautiful. And totally her own! It's an amazing feeling to see progress in the work your students put together, and that, too in such a brief span of time :) 

Do you guys like what these guys came up with? Your feedback and thoughts, super appreciated :)