Hello and welcome to my little crafty blog. It’s a beautiful sunny evening here on the edge of London, and I’m sharing a card that was inspired by the sound of the birds singing in the trees as I’ve got my back door open.

I started by stamping image 1 of the Claritystamp three way overlay set ‘Birds in a Tree’, onto a small square of Clarity stencil card. This gives you the line art for the picture

It’s such a lovely detailed stamp. I decided to leave the picture white, and just colour in the background using stamp 3 from the set. I’ve just treated myself to some Distress Oxide inks so wanted to play with them as well! I used ‘mermaid lagoon’ and ‘bundled sage’, dabbing them onto the stamp using a sponge. This is a great technique, as you can blend the inks on the stamp before putting it onto your card

Having stamped the card, there was still some ink on the stamp. I’ve seen Barbara Gray from Clarity then spritz the stamp with water to loosen the ink and get a second image from it. So that’s what I did – but I think I was a bit liberal with the water spray as the ink bled on the card! I do quite like it though. The first generation stamp is on the right in the photo below, and the second generation spritzed with water is on the left

I finished the card by mounting the topper onto a piece of Claritystamp designer paper from the ‘Northern Lights’ set, and then onto a 7×7 card blank.

I’m definitely going to spend more time playing with these Distress Oxide inks. In the meantime, I hope you get to enjoy some birdsong wherever you are this evening.