Hello, and welcome to my little crafty blog. I must admit, writing these posts every weekend is giving me a helpful routine on my days off from work. I don’t know about you, but I’ve often said how I’d love to have days off with nothing to do – and now I have them, I’m not quite so sure they’re a good thing! I am, however, sitting in my garden enjoying the sunshine as I write this, so I have a lot to be thankful for.

I’m busy building up my stock of birthday cards whilst we’re all still on lockdown in the UK. Crafting does help me to focus on what’s on front of me, and stop my brain whirring round with everything that’s going on at work and in the news. I’m grateful to have a hobby that lets me step away from things for a short while.

Today’s card uses the sketch from this week’s challenge #434 over at Freshly Made Sketches, which was designed by Linda Callahan

I’ve turned the design round by 90 degrees (which I think is allowed!) for this card, and started by using the large A5 background stamp from the Claritystamp ‘Dots & Spots’ mixed textures stamp set.

I used four of the mini Artistry Ink Pads (Lime Kiss, Aqua Fusion, Fancy Fuschia & Terracotta) to build up the background on a piece of A5 white card. The easiest way to do this is to leave the stamp on the backing acetate, so it’s flexible. Then add one colour of ink, just dotted randomly on various parts of the stamp, and stamp onto the paper. Then repeat with the second colour, and so on. Having the stamp on the acetate means that you can bend it if there’s just one part of it you want to stamp with, adn you can also control the pressure. The sharp-eyed amongst you will spot that I forgot to take a photo at this point…!

Once I was happy with the background colours, I cut the card down into thirds, and stamped the middle piece using the Claritystamp ‘Funky Foliage’ stamp. I do love this image – it’s so versatile. I highlighted the flowers and leaves with coordinating Spectrum Noir pencils., and edged each piece using a black Sharpie for definition

I then just mounted the centre piece onto coordinating card (this was ‘Rain’ from Bazzill Basics) and then onto black card. I offset the two outer pieces onto a larger piece of coloured card, to follow the sketch, and mounted it all onto an A5 card

I hope you’re all able to get a little sunshine in your life this weekend. Take care and stay safe