Welcome to day 7 of my ’12 Days of Clarity’ personal challenge. Today I’m on to the ‘iron horse’ stamp from Claritystamp’s New Design Club in July. I really wasn’t sure how to use this stamp to start with, so did a bit of browsing on Pinterest and saw quite a few cards that had been made with stamps featuring carousel horses. They are great for children’s cards and I thought I might be able to do that with this stamp, so here we go…

I started by cutting a circle of white card and stamping the horse in black Archival ink. The detail on it is just lovely. I then drew in the pole to turn it into a carousel horse, thanks to Barbara Gray’s lessons in the SHAC Shack over the last year (check out all her doodling lessons on the Claritystamp YouTube channel -https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJDaKSomkGEpxOiFCH4CqFQ ) I had managed to join in with some of the early sessions – Barbara showed us how to doodle a 3D effect border back in April and so I used that technique for the carousel pole to make it look rounded.

I then watercoloured the horse using Distress inks in rainbow colours. I used Festive Berries, Ripe Persimmon, Mustard Seed, Mowed Lawn, Wilted Violet and Chipped Sapphire. I finished the circle off by running a black Sharpie round the edge, to just define it on the card. I wasn’t sure how well this would work, as I’ve only done that on straight edges until now. Have to say it went well – the key was doing it in two halves, I started and finished at the carousel pole each time so the join wasn’t obvious.

I mounhed the circle onto a 7×7 card blank, which is bigger than I usually use, but I wanted to leave plenty of space to stamp the sentiment. I’ve had this ‘happy birthday’ stamp from Clarity for years – it’s curved which is really useful, but I don’t think it’s on the website any more. I used my stamping platform to make sure the stamp was lined up against the circle, and then stamped it four times around the horse using black Archival ink.

I’m really pleased with how this has turned out. It’s a great children’s card and definitely another one that I’ll use again.