Today is the Feast of Epiphany in the Christian calendar, making the visitation of the Magi (or Wise Men) to Jesus and his parents in Bethlehem. They are described in the Gospel of St Matthew in the New Testament, although the Bible doesn’t say how many there were. The Eastern (Orthodox) churches have as many as 12 magi visiting Jesus, but Western Christianity traditionally has three of them, most likely because of the three gifts they are described as bringing (gold, frankincense and myrrh).

I remembered that I’d got these stamps from Claritystamp, so decided to put them to good use. I started with a piece of the Clarity ‘Northern Lights’ designer card – the golden area in this was just perfect for a light shining in the sky. I trimmed it down to fit on a 6×6 card, and then die cut a circular aperture in the black card blank. I marked the circle onto the designer card with a pencil, so that I could get the stamps positioned in the right place, and stamped the star in black Archival over the golden area. I also tore a piece of copy paper to make a mask, using an oval die as a guide to get the hill shape, and then used a make up sponge to drag black Distress Ink onto the card to make the hill for the Magi to travel along. Again, having the pencil circle mark was useful for positioning the hill.

I then attached the designer card to the inside of the card blank (making sure I’d got it the right way up!). I could then stamp the Magi into position, sitting them along the hill at the right of the card.

Finally, I stamped the music image onto a piece of black card, and heat embossed it with WOW ‘metallic gold rich’ super fine powder. I then cut the image out with scissors and attached it to the card front across the bottom of the circle with foam pads.

Epiphany traditionally marks the end of the 12 days of Christmas, and no doubt you’ve all now taken your decorations down. Don’t worry if you haven’t though – for the Christian calendar the Christmas season doesn’t end until Candelmas at the beginning of February. I’ve seen a few posts on social media of people deciding to keep their decorations and lights up until then. Let’s face it, we all need lights shining in the darkness at the moment.