Welcome to my crafty blog. Two of my friends are about to start new jobs, and I remembered this sentiment stamp from Claritystamp’s New Design Club (several years ago), which said exactly the right thing. Things are not always exactly what they seem though (spoiler alert!) – I looked up this quote from Gandhi and have discovered that he didn’t actually say this. His words in the speech that it is believed to have been quoted from were ‘If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change’. Despite that, I’m happy to go with the quotation!

The colours for the card are inspired by this weeks Fab Friday challenge http://fabfridaystampinchallenge.blogspot.com/

I started with the ‘trellis’ stencil from Claritystamp, which I haven’t used for ages. I taped it onto the front of a 6×6 card blank, and then lightly brushed ‘lettuce’ and ‘meadow’ Adirondack ink through it, keeping to the left of the card. I recently saw Eileen Godwin demo this on YouTube and wanted to try it, as it makes a great background. On reflection, I think I might have been a bit heavy handed, but practice makes perfect!

I then stamped the sentiment and ‘Tina’s floral spray’ (also from Clarity) in Archival black. There are infill stamps with the floral spray, but I decided to watercolour the flowers and leaves using Pergamano aqua pencils and a waterbrush, picking up the colours from the challenge.

These are such challenging times we are living in, and as I type the news is featuring the amazing campaign from footballer Marcus Rashford to extend funding for children receiving free school meals to continue through the school holidays. He’s certainly living out this sentiment.