AECP Level 1 Seasonal Scene Building

Hi Everyone!

For today’s project, I created a scene card inspired by the lessons in the Seasonal Scene Building course. I’d love to hear what you think!

I’ve always loved scene building and masking to stamp a scene, but for this project, I took a different approach—I used dies and did quite a bit of coloring with Altenew inks as watercolors.

Creating the Layers

I started by die-cutting a circle from the front of a light grey card panel to set up a multi-layered scene. Then, I watercolored three different panels:

🌿 Green panel – blended shades of Green Gold, Citronella, Mossy Meadow and Lime, then added light gold splatters once dry.

🍁 Orange-red panel – painted with Ruby Red, Pinkalicious and Orange Cream, followed by the same gold splatter technique.

🌊 Blue panel – a mix of Navy, Lagoon and Sea Glass, finished with a pearly shimmer using Shimmer Relief Paste in Pearl.

Die Cutting & Scene Assembly

Once the panels were dry, I moved on to die-cutting:

🕊 Birds & layered bird bath – cut from the blue panel using the Bird Bath Layering Die Set.

🌿 Leaves & branches – cut from the green panel using Branches and Berries, Itty Bitty Branches and Just Leaves.

🔴 Background circle – cut from the orange-red panel to layer behind the aperture.

I assembled the bird bath and birds, using the packaging as a guide, then stamped “Happy Birthday” (from the sadly discontinued Sohcahtoa Stamp Set) in Obsidian Pigment Ink—my go-to ink for crisp, fade-resistant sentiments.

Next, I started building the scene:

✨ The bird bath was foam-mounted over the aperture.

✨ The leaves were glued behind the opening to simulate tree branches.

✨ One bird was perched on the front of the card, while the other was tucked inside.

A Surprise Inside!

But wait—there’s more! Inside the card, I created a second scene, transforming the tree branches into shrubs by adding a grass die-cut. I added more leaves in the upper left corner (to distract from the upside down bird bath). A third bird nestled into these branches, while a small leaf branch was glued onto the orange-red background circle to tie everything together.

And that’s my fourth project for AECP! 🎉 I had so much fun putting this together, and I hope you like it too. Drop me a comment below—I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Thank you so much for stopping by, and happy crafting! ✂️🎨🖤