Class-Y Ladies: Anita and Els

It’s Els here today to share photos from a wonderful class I took at Doe@ding with Anita Izendoorn on February 13 while I was in the Netherlands. We made several projects including a pull card and a strawberry-filled circle. And since the class was timed for Valentine’s Day, there were cookies, chocolate, coffee and tea – as much as we wanted!

All of us here at Elizabeth Craft Designs are great fans of Anita’s and we know you are, too. You see a lot of her projects on our Facebook page! She is a talented artist whose cards are amazing – elegant and beautiful, the perfect mix of die-cut and hand-colored elements that are evidence of her great skills as a designer.

I just love how she uses Distress Inks and blending tools. She will start with White Soft Finish Cardstock (she calls it ‘Anita’s Choice’ and her ‘cuddle cardstock’) and before you know it there is a luscious red strawberry in front of you with equally beautiful green leaves and softly-shaded white blossoms, and she does great things with the background layers and flourishes and she has such a way with Karen Burniston’s interactive dies, plus she is a wizard with Brusho crystal powdered watercolor pigments, and so much more! For this class she wove in dies from Joset Designs (the Strawberries set) and some of mine from the Els van de Burgt Studio collection. You get the picture. In fact, you can see from the photos just what I’m talking about.

Anita is a gifted and generous teacher, too. She shared her techniques and some great tricks. I came away feeling very happy, with wonderful finished projects in hand and my mind filled with ideas.

I’m going to practice what I learned – I’m not as skilled as Anita, but it is very easy to get good results. Everyone in the class created terrific projects.

I’ll share one tip, something that is fun and gives me control and confidence: Start with just a bit of color on the blending tool and don’t use much hand pressure, building the color values from dark to light a little at a time, using a circular motion and some tapping to apply and spread the ink. (In other words, you can always add more color, but you can’t subtract/remove ink that is already absorbed into the surface of the cardstock.)

OK, I’m going to share two tricks, not just one: Use several blending foam circles, assigning each to an ink or color family, to save the work of cleaning and drying them. With the mini blending tool these foam pieces easily store under the Distress Ink pads. You can use a single blending tool handle, or if your budget allows get several, it speeds things up. (That’s what I do.)

Thank you, Anita, for the wonderful class. Thank you to the people who took the class – you were wonderful company! And thank you to Doe@ding for taking such good care of all of us.

Anita explaining some fun tips and trick to the students.

Here I am working on my project.

Work in progress. We’re making the card in the middle.

All pieces ready to finish my card.

Some yummy delicious treats during class!