 Well, hi there. My name is Sandi Alnok. I'm an artist and paper crafter here on YouTube And I'm going to show you today how to align art impressions watercolor stamps there's a bunch of them that need to be straight and I've been fussing around with how to do that and I did buy this set there's a couple of them that are Interesting sets and this one has two buildings that you can use and they are clean stamps And this one has a fence and a little sign as well So I'm going to use this stamp set along with a few others that I have And I've shared some of those with you in the past This is all of my flowers and grasses and bushes and things from all the different stamps I have sets that I've bought but there are Foliage sets that are just the plants and I will have those linked for you So if you need some extra things to use with your art impressions stamps, then you can do that So I took the backing off of my Stamps and I'm going to figure out how to do this I've got a small set of acrylic blocks Which are great for all the little flowers and little grasses because it's harder to wield them around But they don't fit the larger stamps. So you're going to need to have some that have a Grid on them in order to do this process for lining them up And you're also going to need some masking paper At least if you want to set the stamp up ahead of time set the scene up So I'm going to stamp these images real quickly. It doesn't matter what color on some Judy Kins eclipse tape Which is masking tape, and it's about the stickiness of a post-it maybe even a little bit less It's very light and just going to throw some color on these as you can see That's all you have to do to add color to these stamps Scribble on them and then I'm going to arrange my scene on The packaging there's scenes already for you. So you can follow exactly what they do You can go to the art impressions channel They have videos for all their stamp sets too and you can see what Bonnie has created So I'm going to look at this and sort of see one of the things they did was take this signpost and they actually made a Little cute little thing out of it with with plants in it And they put flowers along the bottom of the fence and then they left a gap between the house and the fence so I want to try to do that on mine and Keep those things in mind. I've taken a piece of acetate to just cover the whole thing first and Then I'm going to place my stamp face down on the house where I want it There are two houses by the way in this set. I'm just going to use this one But I will show you another card with the other one So since my block has a grid on it, this is one from a block from Lawn Fawn Then I can look at the lines on it and make sure it's good and straight And that way when I throw my colors on it and I can use multiple colors of marker I'm using my Tombow markers on this. You can also use your distress markers or Memento markers kind of work and the marvies work really nicely too And stamp it But what I did was align the block The block is the important part in this process I had my block aligned to the paper so that I knew that that was going to be straight when I stamped it So again here this one. I'm going to align to that upper right corner And make sure that my my signpost is straight. I can adjust that But it's going to hit that positioning that I set up with my mask earlier As long as I line that corner back up again With the edge of the paper So I'm going to do the same thing now with the fence. We use that long block from Lawn Fawn And each time notice that I do have Behind it. I have that acetate blocking it so I don't get stuff all over my paper So now I've got these things down and you can reuse these masks now if you're going to be Stamping some flowers and things that you might that might get in the way of some of that And I'll be using them off and on as I do this process I'm going to start with the little cluster of flowers in that hanging basket I do a couple of different colors And I'm using those teeny tiny blocks You can see how much easier it is to wield them rather than trying to do that with a giant block Seeing some people do it with their fingers, but I find that a little cumbersome So these little blocks make a big difference for me in making these scenes If I want the cascade to go around the other side as well look like it's hanging out on the other end I can just use a quick post it To do that And now I want to put some trees back behind my house So I'm going to take I'm actually going to use one of the the little bushes To make trees. You don't have to use the tree stamps. Although there are tree sets that you can use And notice that I'm not worried about a perfect stamp every single time. Sometimes it's a secondary stamp And you know just just don't stress out about it. This is one of those really easy kind of techniques that's pretty forgiving So I'm going to keep adding more of the bushes more of the grasses What I tend to do is try to do the back layer first So if there's a color that's going to fill in there's going to be bushes and trees and things I want to do that early and then put my flowers on top But being aware of what color I'm going to put my flowers in so that I know that If I'm going to have pink flowers over top of some green it's going to layer it And I'm not going to disperse that green underneath So I need to have the lighter colors down at the bottom where my flowers are going to be It's a very pale green and my richer greens are up here in the trees But you can see I take my brush I can move that color around And I'm sort of following that top edge. I'm sort of following where that Stamping is but I can just make little leaf shapes just with my brush And I think this is number looks like a number six or number eight brush Can't tell from what's in my hand there didn't write that down while I was making the video But you can use a lot of different sizes You want to make sure you're using a brush that has a good amount of water And that you clean out your brush pretty regularly so that you don't end up contaminating one area With the color that's in another So here I'm just going to quickly throw some some water around Move this around until it's a very washy background color For all the other things that I'm going to put over top of it As I create my seam And when you want to fade it out into white you want to put more water around that outside edge And make sure that's good clean water So that it kind of softens out when you get out to that outside edge Now I've got a really nice cluster going here in that hanging basket really love how that's working out Now the house Doesn't have a whole lot of ink on it. So this could be a very white house And I could leave it a very very pale looking house I'm going to try to create some lines in it. So there's almost some clappards going across the house Just to add some interesting texture to it But it is feeling a little on the wussy side to me It's not feeling very strong. So I just took some color on a block and Pick up some of that To add to my house So I have a little darker on the left side as well as a little heavier color on some of those little roof pieces I can also add more color later, which I will do And you know add some strength to it and some contrast because I love me some good contrast So I added some little windows in there A little color in the door And now I'm going to make sure my fence looks good before I start on stamping all of my flowers So I have some good definition to that But everything's ready to go you can heat set in between so you get it good and dry But it's going to be more helpful if things are good and dry Especially when you're going to go in here like I am with the marker If I went in while it's wet with this marker I'm going to end up with that marker not moving So you want to make sure the paper is good and dry before you start doing that But look how much that contrast makes a difference love that right So now I'm going to take the same kinds of stamps and I'm going to add more flowers to this And these are the flowers that are going to look like they're in the front So I can make them cascade down and out a little further in that basket And leave them I'll use some water on them, but I'm not going to Make them as mushy as the earlier version that the ones in the background So this is going to add a little more detail and make them pop a little bit more And since I have that soft green in the background too, I can make it Cascade down over the green so it looks like it's in front of it I'll add a whole bunch of different colors and different types of things to the garden in front of the house And you can see I do have a lot of little tiny flower stamps part of it is from those floral and foliage sets that I told you about And part of it is just from having a lot of other sets Because I'm kind of obsessive about buying a lot of these And I I put them in those big stamping up cases by category So that I can just pull out all the flowers and have a choice of all of them Rather than going through each and every individual set I know some people like to keep their sets together in case they ever sell them But I don't think I'm ever going to get rid of these because they're way too much fun So when I'm watercoloring the garden itself, I want to make clusters of color If you just make little spots of a million colors, sometimes it can look really haphazard But if some of the areas look like they're blocks, those big purple blocks, those big pink blocks Then it can often add some real structure to the garden itself I'm going to add some watering out to the bottom section here So it ends up looking like I've got some grasses going on down at the bottom And lots of water down there to try to soften that color out Give them a little driveway here And this is a happy accident that I'm watching That that came up and I wasn't really planning on it happening But it did and you can see that purple bleeding out into the driveway And that in combination with the brown at the bottom and the softness of it was really cool I really liked how soft that blended I added a little contrast in the hillside where the house is to just anchor that a little bit And you can see how tough it is to move that It's tough to move that color and soften that line back out because it was still damp And that is what happens But I wasn't too worried about it since I was going to make sure I had a good strong solid foundation for my house Anyway, you can go back into the house and add a few more little contrasty areas Just to be sure And then I can soften out some of that with my brush Moving that color around Aren't these just so much fun? So now I'm just going to draw in these little pink flowers at the bottom Just with the marker and then a brush and add little detail into the basket And just mount it onto a piece of cardstock. I used an Avery Elle die to make the the beautiful detailed edge around it And Bada Boom Bada Bing put the sentiment on the inside if you'd like I like to have a lot of cards like this that don't have sentiments on them at all So I can adapt them for whatever I want if I want to throw a happy birthday in there I can either hand write it when I write my note or I can stamp it at the time So anyhow, here's some more of the videos I've done with art impressions stamps that one on the left Talks about some specific techniques So if you'd like to watch that one or some of the others to see more about these stamps You can hit that subscribe button click for more on the blog if you want to post these to your Pinterest board And I will see you guys later. Have a great day