Welcome to my crafty blog. I’ve got a couple of friends who are about to start new jobs, so the image and sentiment in this stamp set (‘flutterby’ from Claritystamp) seemed entirely appropriate. I love the colours in this designer paper from Claritystamp as well, especially as today has been the hottest day of the year so far in London.

The design was inspired by the current Fab Friday challenge http://fabfridaystampinchallenge.blogspot.com/

I started with the designer paper, and cut it to size slightly bigger than a 5×7 card blank. Frustratingly, I didn’t have a rectangular die the right size to cut the paper down to leave an L shaped border, which was my original plan, so I had to resort to my paper trimmer. I cut the L shape 2cm wide – because the Clarity papers are double sided, I could then turn that over to form the border, knowing that the colours would completely tone

I then attached the L shaped border to the card blank, making sure it was lined up on the card’s edge

Next was to stamp up the rectangle paper, with the butterfly girl and sentiment in the lighter part. I also added the large leafy stamp a couple of times along the bottom, to look like the girl is flying over the tree tops. I often struggle with getting a good image from large stamps, so used my stamping platform – which was a good move as I needed to stamp the girl a couple of times to get a dense image.

All that remained was to then attach the paper to the card blank. This is where the fact that I cut the original piece slightly larger than the card came into its own, as it meant I had a very slight overlap with the border, so no risk of the white card showing through.

I hope you’ve survived the heat today if you’re in the UK, although it’s not going to get much cooler over the next few days. Whatever you’re doing, Carpe Diem!