Letterpress with Altenew - AECP

I just finished another Altenew Academy Class last week, this one is taught by Jennifer Rzasa and is called Clean and Simple Boutique cards. The lesson that really inspired me was how to do Letterpress using dies, this is a lot of fun and the result is remarkably elegant.

The first thing to do is figure out how to construct your letterpress elements - how many layers of card stock and vellum do you need and what your embossing sandwich should be. 

Each die cutting machine is different so it's hard to give an exact "recipe" but Jennifer's instructions in the class do help. This did take some time and there was a lot of trial and error involved but in the end I figured it out! 

So as not to forget I wrote out the instructions on an Altenew storage pouch that I will use to store my letterpress elements, they can be reused a couple of times. 

TIP: As you can see in the picture I also wrote the word "top" on the elements, once glued together it can be hard to see which side should be facing up so this will make it easier next time I want to use this technique.

So once I had created a couple of letterpress elements from dies I started making cards and it was really quite addictive and I love the embossing created on the card. You can see it quite clearly on this card below, both the balloon and the adorable elephant where letterpressed into the paper.

You can leave the letterpressing as is, I actually decided to stamp the details of some of the Baby Zoo animals, again, this is optional but I think it adds to these cards. 

Baby Zoo was the second Altenew stamp set I ever bought and I absolutely love it!

You can of course use it for a baby announcement or congrats-on-the-new-baby card, but also as a birthday card for a young child or even an adult - see below.

My husband was really happy to receive this card (he does love giraffes):

And you would never have guessed (or maybe you would) that the sun in this card was made with a flower die from the Striped Florals set!

Here is one final letterpress card, it is very simple but I do love this one so much because of the elegant line of that feather!

This is what I used to make these cards:

Altenew dies: Baby Zoo, Striped Florals, Faithful Feather

Altenew Crisp inks: Oink Diamond, Sea GlassMango Smoothie, Butterscotch, Jet Black