Welcome Home

This card was so much fun to make! It’s a response to four challenges. The layout comes from the sketch by Mojo Monday. The colour scheme is from the My Favorite Things Color Challenge. Addicted to CAS asked for “welcome”, and Inkspirational want “dip”.

I actually put a lot of planning into this card, which makes a change! The main reason being that the idea came into my head, and I immediately started scribbling my thoughts down on the nearest piece of paper (which happened to be an old envelope) so that I wouldn’t forget them before the time came to make it. I also pretty much stuck to my plan throughout, which is unusual too because on the rare occasions I do make plans they tend to end up more like starting points.

Anyway. With my plan in hand I set to work. I cut down a piece of water-colour paper to the size of my card front, stuck it down and began painting stripes to represent the strips on the layout. I wanted an ombre effect incorporating the two blues and the grey from the given colours. I don’t have the exact colours, so I went with the closest I could make with my water colours. My idea was to have the ombre strips look like they had been dipped in colour, to incorporate the dip part of the challenges.

Once I was happy with my strips I set them aside to dry and started on my image panel. This was quite time-consuming as it involved a lot of stamping and masking. Having already planned out how the image would look definitely helped the process!

First I stamped the yeti/sasquatch from Lawn Fawn’s Lovable Legends, which is one of my favourite stamp sets! I then stamped him off onto a post-it note and fussy cut it to make the mask. I then stamped the teepee from Avery Elle’s Home Sweet Home. Because of the sizes of the two stamps in comparison to one another I knew I would need to stamp the teepee further back to make it clear that it is meant to be bigger than the yeti. Here again it was good that I had a plan!

After masking off the teepee I started on the trees, which are also from the Lovable Legends set. Rather than the black ink I’d used with my first stamps I used green pigment ink for these, getting as close to the limeade colour as I could. First generation for the bigger, closer trees and second generation for the smaller, further back trees. I had planned to mask the trees off but I must have confused myself because I stamped the smaller trees first, when really I should have done the larger ones. Luckily the mistake doesn’t show too much as the darker front trees cover the lighter back trees well enough on the overlaps.

I did go ahead and create masks for the trees anyway and added those on before adding my clouds, which come from Avery Elle’s Pixie Dust. (They don’t really show in the picture because of the light!) I stamped those in a pale blue pigment ink as I wanted the outline to not be super obvious. I did one large one in the top left corner, a smaller one behind and to the right of the teepee, and another smaller one coming out of the tree line on the right. The last thing I stamped was again with the green pigment ink and that was some sprouts of grass, which came from Avery Elle’s Hogs and Kisses.

With all my stamping done I was able to start colouring my image. I used watercolour pencils, though for the most part I did not blend them out. I did use water on the clouds, which I coloured a soft grey. I used light blue for the sky, and different shades of green for the grass making sure to add flecks, especially towards the foreground, to give the impression of blades of grass and to incorporate some texture. For the tent I aimed for the darker of the given blues, with the stripes being towards the limeade colour

I wanted the yeti to be a big foot, hence going for brown fur. I considered doing him in the grey but decided it wouldn’t look right. I did give him grey skin though, so his face, hands and feet are grey. I also gave him rosy cheeks and a little pink nose.

I matted the image on a panel of green, then set it aside.

Bringing my background panel back I added a little more colour to the bottom of the “dip” strips to help the colour stand out more. I then set it aside to dry again whilst I made my banner.

For the banner I used the same white watercolour paper I had used for the striped panel and the image panel, as I wanted the white to match. I put it in my MISTI and stamped “welcome home” from the Home Sweet Home set. I’m glad I put it in the MISTI as I had to stamp it twice to get it looking right. I then decided to add a little heart, using the smallest of the solid hearts from the stamp set. I stamped it three times, again with my MISTI, using a red pigment ink. I realise red wasn’t one of the given colours but I couldn’t resist. Once that was done I cut the banner shape (which I’m bad at..!) and set it aside whilst I began assembling the card.

Assembly was pretty straightforward. I used Tombow Multi Mono Liquid glue to adhere the mounted image panel to the striped panel, giving it a slight tilt in the process. (In my plan I’d intended to do the image so it was straight when the image was angled, but I apparently forgot that when stamping and only realised part way through the colouring. Never mind!) I placed an acrylic block on top to press it in place whilst I added foam squares to the back of the banner. Before adding that I attached the main panel to the front of my card base. I used my MISTI to do this, following a tip I’d heard on YouTube. Basically you use one of the corners of the MISTI as a guide to push up against, ensuring perfect positioning. Worked really well! Finally I attached my little banner and was done.

I’m so happy with how this turned out. It’s almost exactly as I imagined! The only thing I would perhaps change is to make the colours of the watercolour stripes a bit stronger (though admittedly they do look better in real life than in the pictures!) and to remember to angle the image properly. I haven’t let my husband see this card as I am going to give it to him when we move into our new flat and are living together again. Hopefully he will like it!

Love,

Lady Joyful