Potting Bench & Build My Life by Karen Day

Welcome to another Watercolour Weekend!

My first card features the wonderful 5435 - WC Foundations Potting Bench.  What I love about the Foundations stamps, are that they take all the guesswork & planning away - you get a substantial scene planned out for you, no figuring out if something is the right size, or how many pots you can fit!  You still get to customize it with whatever colours and flowers you want to use - but you can get right down to business, and start painting.

I picked out my colour palette first, choosing yellows(991/993) / blue-greens(312/407) / purple(565) / brown(969/947) / grey(N55/N57).  I wanted a softer outline, so I stamped my image using N55 with my Misti - which is really helpful for such a large image, in case you miss a spot.  I began painting my pots first to plan out my colours, giving them all a base coat.  I decided to add my critter from 5425 - WC Peeking Animals to one of the pots, so I used my stamp positioner to place him perfectly.  

I used 7 different stamp sets to create my pots!!  I won't go over each flower, but did want to mention how I did the pansies in the box on the middle shelf.  I used the daisy bunch from Flower Set - 4052, colouring the top of each flower in 993, and the bottom in 565 - I'm quite happy with how they turned out!  The other stamp sets I used are 5126 - WC Foliage Set 4; 5475 - WC Flower Set 6; 4868 - WC Flower Set 2; 5476 - WC Foliage Set 5; 5474 - WC Flower Set 5; 5828 - WC Poinsettia Set.  I stitched my scene to a brown mat with my sewing machine, and used some 3D foam adhesive to adhere it to my base.

This month, I wanted to give some love to one of the Ai Bible Journaling sets - so I pulled out 5127 - Build My Life Set, and created a little scene.  

I stamped the window, pots and puppy (5016 - WC Mini Critter Set) after colouring them with 969/565 (masking the pots as needed).  With masks in place, I also masked the window, and then inked up the brick texture stamp that comes in the set, with N57 - not colouring it completely, being a bit sporadic, as I wanted an aged look to the stones.  I used the leafy branch from 5126 - WC Foliage Set 4 in 249, and stamped it repeatedly to create my vine.  For a little different leafy detail, I used both vines from the set, and stamped them in 249/126.  I purposefully left a few open areas, so that I could stamp the daisy bunch from 4052 - Flower Set in 993 to add flowers to the vine.  

After using a damp brush on the foliage, I continued with my brush to pull out the colour from the lines of the bricks and the window - then filled the bricks in with N57 and 977 to add some warmth to the bricks.  977 was also used on the pots, and N57 on the puppy.  I used both grasses from 4051 - Foliage set, in 249/126 around the pots, and pulled out the colour to ground the scene.  To create a little view out of the window, I used 5789 - Hot Air Balloon Set, to stamp two hot air balloons in the sky, and painted in the hills (249/126) and sky (493).  I used 933/493/993 to paint in the balloons.  I went around the scene with 565 - adding it as shadows on the window and bricks, and on the undersides of the pots.  The sentiment is from 5797 - Little Things Sentiment Set, and the image was die cut with 5062 - Rounded A2 Rectangle Double Stitched Dies.