Colorado Craft Company Kris Laurens February 2023 Release!

Hi there! My friends over at Colorado Craft Company have released another lovely collection illustrated by Kris Laurens, and I’m super excited to help them introduce these new images! The new Way of Plants collection is succulent-themed, perfect for that plant lover in your life! I have the blackest of thumbs, but I particularly love the grace of succulents and they way some of them pretend to be a big fat cabbage rose. These enormous images are totally perfect for doing some no-line watercoloring, which is exactly what I did! My big boy had his first wrestling meet this weekend, so I was stressing and really enjoyed the process of methodically adding color to the new Ready, Set, Grow stamp set. Let’s get started with the details!

I have always loved the Big & Bold line from Colorado Craft Company. I find the images super easy to color in your chosen medium, because you can really dig down deep into the nooks and crannies to create lots of depth and dimension, and these new images from the Way of Plants release are huge and a blast to color. I began by stamping the large succulent image from Ready, Set, Grow onto some Arches Cold Press watercolor paper using Contour Ink from Hero Arts, which is my favorite ink for no-line coloring in any medium. I used Daniel Smith paints to add lots of color to the image, creating an intense cobalt blue pot, which I allowed to dry completely before adding some super sparkly handmade watercolor from IUILE to the pattern on the pot.

I added lots of deep green to the succulent plant, working in separate sections to keep the wet sections from touching one another and muddying the crisp edges. I placed the color on each petal, keeping the highest concentration of color towards the center of the plant and pulling the color out to a nice fade towards the edges. After I’d added the first layer of deep green, I went back and added a few shadows with a dark gray paint to those petals (leaves?) of the succulent that were really shadowed. I die cut the finished image with the Ready Set Grow coordinating dies.

I loved the contrast of the bright blue pot next to the leaves on the watercolored image, so for my background, I blended Royal all over my white A2 card front, then added some Pitch Black ink to the edge to help intensify that deep blue and add some dimension to the background. I splattered some of the same sparkling metallic watercolor splatters to the blended background. I think it looks like a starry night sky… definitely filing this product combination away for later use! I popped up the watercolored succulent on the blended, splattered background using some foam tape, then added the greeting from Ready, Set, Grow. I heat embossed the greeting on some coordinating deep blue cardstock using Platinum Sparkle embossing powder, which coordinates beautifully with the metallic watercolor throughout the card. I die cut the greeting with the Ready Set Grow coordinating dies and popped it up on the card front using a double layer of foam tape to help it really pop!

Well, that’s all for my project today! To celebrate their newest release, Colorado Craft Company is sponsoring a giveaway on each of the participating blogs’ comment section. To win your choice of stamp set from the new release, simply leave a comment on each of the blogs’ Way of Plants posts by midnight on 2/21. The winners for the giveaway will be announced on 2/25!

Here’s the full list of blog participants:

Emily Midgett
Jennifer Kotas
Kassi HuletKelly Griglione
Kelly Taylor
Nancy Sheads

IG:

Jennifer Gross
Joe Sysavath
Kathy Racoosin
Mansi Bhatia
Traci Jenkins