Welcome to my crafty blog. It’s Remembrance Sunday here in the UK, although many of the usual services and parades that would mark the day have not been able to take place. The poppy is still standing as the symbol of remembrance, though – they are the flowers which grew on the battlefields after World War One ended. This is evocatively described in the famous World War One poem ‘In Flanders Fields’, which was written in 1915 by a Canadian military doctor, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, after losing a close friend in the Battle of Ypres

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders’ fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders’ fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe;
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high,
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders’ Fields.

I think that is such a powerful piece of poetry, and today’s card obviously has a poppy theme. The design was inspired by this week’s Freshly Made Sketches challenge (https://freshlymadesketches.blogspot.com/). I’m also going to enter it into the current Just Add Ink challenge (http://just-add-ink.blogspot.com/)

I started by covering an A6 card blank with a piece of poppy patterned paper from Stampin’Up!, leaving a very narrow white border round the edge. I cut a piece of white card using the SU banner dies, and then stamped the Claritystamp poppy stamp on the left side. I watercoloured the poppies with ink using a waterbrush, but this is where life got a bit interesting! I didn’t have ink that was an exact match for the paper, so in the end blended red and purple, with a touch of pink, to get the right shade.

I then stamped the sentiment from one of Clarity’s ‘art nouveau’ sets onto a piece of white card, and mounted it onto a piece of the poppy paper that was just fractionally wider, so that the strip stood out against the white topper. I think the font in this sentiment works really well with the poppies

That’s it! Quite a simple card really, once I’d managed to sort out the ink colours for the poppies… And on the subject of poppies, the Royal British Legion, who do amazing work in the UK for servicemen and women, have not been able to sell poppies in their usual street collections this year. if you weren’t able to buy a poppy as usual, please do think about taking a minute to donate to them online. Here’s the link to their website – https://www.britishlegion.org.uk/get-involved/ways-to-give/donate