My Neighbourhood

I am up on the Scrap'n Stamp Blog today with this card using the stamp and die set from Concord & 9th called City Stacks. There are so may options one can use with this set, but today I decided to use all three of the stamps, plus a sentiment stamp. 

My inspiration for this came from the neighbourhood where I live. I am an apartment dweller, but fortunately there is only my building, not a slew of apartment buildings. I overlook a very old street with beautiful large homes built in the 20's and 30's, with beautifully manicured lawns and huge old trees. It is always such a joy to walk this neighbourhood come autumn. 

I am using Arches cold press watercolour paper for this card, but any watercolour paper can be used. I am also using Tim Holtz Distress Inks both in mini cubes and markers. 

I stamped the image of the city buildings first in jet black ink, then did the sky using tumbled glass and blueprint sketch. I then did a wash over the buildings using wilted violet and painted the area that will show behind the tree stack using mowed lawn.

On a separate piece of watercolour paper, I stamped and die cut the tree stack, keeping in mind that this will be behind the row of houses. As I did not want a lot of bulk I used my bone folder along the straight cut edge of the paper, which flattens it just enough so as to not have a ridge. I then watercoloured the grass with the mowed lawn, and the trees I did using dried marigold, fozzilized amber, spiced marmalade and a bit of candied apple.  I also went around the trees with the mowed lawn as I did not want any of the white showing.

I then moved on to the house, stamping and die cutting the piece to allow for my sentiment. I painted the houses in worn lipstick, tumbled glass, dried marigold and used fired brick for the doors and roofs. I added squeezed lemonade in the windows for light. I have some hickory smoke on the window ledges and steps. And, it was while I was doing the post on the Scrap'n Stamp blog that I realized I had not painted the flowers in the windown boxes. My story then, and now is that the flowers were pulled to make way for the coming autumn. 😊

To finish my card I stamped one of the sentiments from the set using the jet black ink. 

So, in the end it is a three layer card, but the layers were done so it does not feel like it has that many layers. 

I hope you have enjoyed this card today. Following is a list of the products used with affilate links to the store.

Thank you for visiting.