Holiday Card - Altenew Berry Branch -

Hi friends! I’m back with a card inspired by Altenew’s Easy Ink Blending Techniques class led by Amy Lee. I am not new to ink blending but the class still offered some valuable tips and techniques. For this holiday card, I decided to use a very simple ink blending around the focal image as Amy did in Lesson 1 of this class. This serves to kind of highlight the area of focus for the eye.

I have been itching to play with the Berry Branch and Cardinal Love layering die sets. I knew I wanted to highlight my branch scene with some ink blending but I needed to assemble my die cuts first. Temporarily placing my assembled images on the card would allow me to understand where to ink blend to achieve the look I wanted. I used various colors of cardstock to cut each image. I used lighter colors of pink, gray and brown knowing I would be doing additional ink blending on each die cut. To keep the die cuts stationary while I blended, I used my Waffle Flower grip mat. The Altenew Fresh Dye ink colors I used are listed below.

Cardinal
- Heart Beat (body)
- Limestone (wings and face)
- Morning Frost (tail feathers)
Branch
- Heart Beat (berries)
- Sweet Leaf (leaves)
- Morning Frost (branch)

Once ink blended, I assembled the die cuts according to the guides provided with the set and adhered together with Art Glitter glue. I lost the tiny die cut for the cardinal’s eye so I used Black Nuvo Crystal Drops instead. It was a happy accident because I think I prefer the gloss from the drops. I also took a white gel pen to add a snowy look to the berries.

For my card panel, I cut a piece of Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 80lb cardstock to 4 by 5 1/4 inches. Again, I used my Waffle Flower grip mat to hold my panel in place while I blended. I arranged my die cuts on the panel to understand where to lighten my ink blending. The lighter areas serve to highlight the focal image. Before blending, I removed my die cuts to ensure I didn’t accidentally ruin them with blue ink. I used Winter Lake Fresh Dye Ink to ink the whole panel focusing the darker blending on the outside edges. Then I came in with Arctic Mountain to make the edges of the panel even darker. My vision for this card was a snowy scene so I took some white acrylic paint and mixed with a spritz of water. I loaded a small paint brush with the paint and flicked some drops onto my blue ink blended panel to resemble snow and then allowed that to dry.

Once my snow drops were dry, I adhered my die cuts as shown in the photo. Then, I adhered that panel to a pale pink mat cut at 4 1/8 by 5 3/8 inches. That panel was then adhered to a Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 80lb side-folding A2 card base. This measured 8 1/2 by 5 1/2 inches scored at 4 1/4 inches.

For the sentiment, I used Altenew’s Pocket Sentiments and stamped with Versafine Onyx black ink then cut with the coordinating die. I adhered that onto my card front with foam squares. To add some shine, I used some clear sequins I’ve had in my stash for a while.

Now, you know me. I can’t say my card is finished until I have dressed up the inside. The inside panel is a piece of Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 80b cardstock measuring 4 by 5 1/4 inches. I ink blended it the same way I did the front panel with the same colors. Then, I stamped the sentiment from Altenew’s Classic Greetings stamp set. I, once again, adhered that panel to a pale pink mat measuring 4 1/8 by 5 3/8 inches. Finally, that went inside my card base and my card was done.

I hope this helped you come up with some holiday card ideas of your own. Just turn on your favorite holiday movie or some music and get to work. If you want to see more examples of ink blending, check out this post. I appreciate you stopping by today. Now go get creative!

**This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to shop, I receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. This helps me to continue creating content for all of you. Thank you for your support! All products used in this post were purchased by me.