 Well, hi there, it's Sandy Allnock, and I have a layered slimline card that I'm going to watercolor today. And I did it twice, but the blue one did not capture on video, because I don't know. My old camera is dying. Gotta get a new one. Yikes. Anyway, the dye that I am using is from Trinity Stamps. For those who like to do layers but can't deal with the math of calculating the layers on a card, this is actually a really good dye set for you in that way. And it's got three windows in it, as well as the layers for the outside. And you can, of course, cut those layers, which is what I've always done. You can cut those layers with a trimmer, and then figure out how to do three windows like this. However, I'm going to show you why I actually like this more than using a trimmer when we get to the end. But nonetheless, I'm starting off by taping this so that the windows are centered in the smallest panel. I'm going to be using all the panels. You can, of course, eliminate some and not do as many layers. But I'm going to do several layers with watercolor paper. So I've got my paper cut into strips so I can do that. So I've die cut the top piece. That's going to be my top layer. And then this one that I'm drawing into with the pencil is going to be my layer for stamping and painting. And even if you're not interested in doing a card like this, I am going to do a continuous background across all of the pictures that I'm going to be stamping so that you can get an idea of how to do that, even if you can't figure out how to do the whole thing with the dyes and the windows and all that. I wanted to stamp my purple onion designs stamps into this. And what I did was take a piece of acetate and test out where their locations were, juggle back and forth, that sort of thing, until I was happy with their location in each one of the squares. And then I took a kneaded eraser to lighten the outlines. I just didn't want them very dark because once you start painting over pencil, you can trap it in there and then you'll end up with lines and all that sort of thing. So erasing them and making them much lighter will help. I've turned the board upside down so I can work toward myself. I tend to get a sharper edge at the top with my brush than I do at the bottom. So sometimes it's easier to just turn the paper a different direction. And I'm making a hillside behind all of the critters. And I'm going past the squares that were on the inside of the windows, but not all the way out to the outside line. Remember when I drew the outside lines around that panel that's going to sit on top, that line is going to be the start of the part that hangs out past the edge. And you'll see when I get to the next phase, I'm going to use one of the bigger dies to cut it. So I want to be able to paint on that in a specific way. So I just don't want the paint going all the way out there. The colors that I'm going to use in this one, I decided to do different colors than just the blues because once I do something once, I don't usually like to do the same thing again very much. I like to do something different. So I decided to try some more fun colors using new Gamboge, Quinacridone Rose, and I'll add some Imperial Purple. And with these three colors, it's kind of fun to play around with what happens when they mix. When Quinacridone Rose, which you may know as a pinkish color, starts to mix with the new Gamboge, it becomes more of a warm red rather than a pink. So I'm going to go back in and add more of it. So I've mixed some heavier color of the Quinacridone Rose with a little tiny bit of the Imperial Purple in it so that I get more of a deeper color that goes kind of better with the colorway that I'm aiming for. And once you get enough pigment in there, you can start tipping the board. But it was starting to dry, so I wanted to make sure I had enough in there. So I added more of the new Gamboge as well. Just lots and lots of pigment in here because I wanted it really intense. And some of it you'll get a natural mix and then some you may find you want to tilt the board and let the paint run so you can get some nice blending going on. But I'm going to be painting trees over top of it. So if it doesn't blend perfectly, don't sweat it because you'll be able to fix some of that in the next phase. So I'm just going to tilt my board, kind of let the paint play around and then get it all dried so I can work on the next step. But just roll it around until you're happy with the look that you're getting. And if you need to add more paint on something, then by all means do. And then I'm going to heat dry it with my new heat gun. My other one just blew up on me so I had to get a new one. This one is from WoW and it has two different settings on it. Which is kind of nice. You can have a low setting and high setting. For the trees, I have mixed up a thin mix of the quinacridone rose with the imperial purple. And it's thin because I don't want this to be big solid blocky lines on it. I want them to feel transparent so I need to have enough water in it that it ends up actually being a little bit transparent. You can still see some through it. And that's going to give it that soft trees in the distance kind of a look. I'm using my number eight silver black velvet brush. And for some of you, this will be brush practice in trying to control the background. This is one of the reasons why I don't tend to do a lot of watercolor backgrounds. Because until you start getting control over your brushes, it's really hard to put this kind of detail in. And typically on things like this, if I want to do this kind of background, I've always tried doing Copic markers or pencils or something when it's got a lot of detail in it. But I'm getting braver in putting some of this out here on YouTube. Because a lot of people are wanting to do more watercolor. And if you want to do more watercolor, you're going to have to do things like this. If you want to do scenes because it requires having control over your brushes. And generally, I don't hold the brush down here really close at the bottom like a pencil. But when I'm doing this kind of detail work, I have to. It makes it so that things don't flow as much. Because normally I like to hold the brush back a little bit, let my arm move. But when you're trying to do tiny controlled things, it's just hard to do with a brush. It's just not something that's real easy. So if you're trying to get better at scenes with watercolor, then I would highly recommend just doing a background like this and practicing making trees, making brush strokes like that. So I'm going to zip through in speed fashion. More of this because I do want to get to the assembly of the card. But I'm going to use the same colors for the most part in the little critters that I used in the background. That's going to tie everything together. It's going to feel like it's all part of the same thing. So I'm going to use the pink in various forms. So some will be light pink, some will be darker pink. I'll use the yellow in the same kind of a way, the purple in the same kind of a way, just so I have the same colors. And I can use what's left on my palette too. So nice way to use all that up. I mixed out of some of it a brownish color so I could have the puppy or bunny. I'm not sure what that is in the middle one. I'll have to look that up when I find the links to the purple onion site. She usually says what kind of animal it is. And you could think of it as a puppy or a bunny. But the two critters have a little bit of brown in them. So I've added just a tiny, tiny bit of a color mixed out of the mush that's left in my palette and then added snow onto everything. And then comes the fun. So I have laid this down just to check and make sure everything is the way I wanted it. And then remember I said that outside of this I was going to do some painting. Well, I'm going to make a layer that's custom. So you could use patterned paper, of course, but I'm going to use the outside layer with watercolor on it so that it's going to match my painting on the inside. And I'm just using the same three colors and adding more paint until I get the right mix, the right blend from left to right. And then I stuck all of the center portion, that top layer on there, just temporarily so I could line up the next layer. Remember we have several layers in the die set. And I'm going to stick that down, pull the front layer up, and then go run it through my die cutter. And so that's going to give me the larger piece. The other two pieces I also have cut out of watercolor paper. Why watercolor paper? Because then I can do another layer in the same kind of a way. And it's also going to make it a nice heavy beefy card. And there's just something about a card that has lots of good solid layers on it that makes me happy. So that's what I'm going to do here. So you can see I've got that little bit of color sticking out. I'm going to make the next layer in white. And I'm not going to pop that one. I'm just going to pop the front layer so it looks like I've got little windows. And then the next layer, which is again cut out of the biggest of the dies, I'm going to do the same painting thing again. And just paint the colors on there. And you can see that it doesn't matter what the inside edge looks like, because that's all going to be covered. But I want that same rotation. You could either put it on the same side, or you can turn it around so you get the opposite rotation of colors. And it just sort of looks like this funky psychedelic exchange of colors from one side to the other, which I really liked. And I loved how this one came out even more, I think, maybe than the blue one. The blue one was nice, but I'm glad I had to redo it. Here's where you can see exactly why I like those edges. The dies give you a little extra lip, which is a little more elegant than just using paper that you've cut out with your trimmer. So if you like that kind of an edge, this might be a set of dies worthwhile getting. And of course, the stamps are always worth getting, because they're fun from Purple Onion Designs. I'll have links to all the supplies in the doobly-doo. The sentiment, I plan specifically to fill in that one spot on the card. I moved that center image to the right, just so I'd have a place to put the sentiment on this one. A little room to cover that up. So there you go. There is my video for today. Hope you enjoyed this and learned something from it. Links to the blog post with still pictures and everything else is in the doobly-doo, including the winners from my recent video. I'll see you guys later. Bye.