Welcome to my crafty blog. I discovered that it’s National Afternoon Tea week in the UK, and thought this stamp from Crafty Individuals was perfect. Afternoon tea is a very British tradition which, according to the Fortnum & Mason website (https://www.fortnumandmason.com/fortnums/short-history-of-afternoon-tea) dates back to the 1830s when Anna Russell, Duchess of Bedford, is credited with first making ‘Afternoon Tea’ into a formal social occasion. It all had to do with the evening meal being eaten later, which became fashionable as more and more houses became able to be cost-effectively lit until well into the late evening. Finding herself getting hungry in the gap between luncheon and dinner, the Duchess began inviting her friends to enjoy tea and ‘a light refreshment’ in her rooms at Woburn Abbey. She continued the practice when she returned to London and the ‘Afternoon Tea’ became an increasingly fashionable ritual among the social hostesses of the upper classes. It’s still very popular now as well (although definitely not a low calorie meal!)

Anyway, back to the card. I started by stamping and then watercolouring the image with inks, using the colour scheme from the new Color Throwdown challenge https://colorthrowdown.blogspot.com/

I used Adirondack inks in ‘mountain rose’ and latte’ and Distress ink in ‘Peacock feathers’. Having settled on those, I got a bit indecisive as I didn’t like the first colourway I used on the image, and so recoloured one with a plain background.

I mounted both of them onto contrasting layers. The first one went onto a piece of designer paper from Lili of the Valley (I love using up papers that have been in my stash for a while), and the second one onto a piece of kraft card that I stamped over in ‘latte’ using the ‘TIna’s flowers’ stamps from Claritystamp. I put a piece of contrasting ribbon under each of the toppers and added a bow on the side

At this point, I went back to preferring the first image again! Here are both cards, though – let me know what you think, left or right?