Welcome to my crafty blog. I’ve got another spring theme today – I’ve decided it’s definitely on the way! No apple blossom in my garden yet, but I’ve seen a couple of blue tits in the last week (or maybe it was the same one twice…)

I’ve gone with a couple of blog challenges for inspiration for this design – the layout from Freshly Made Sketches and the theme from Less Is More

I’ve gone back to another stamp set that I’ve had for quite a few years for this card – the ‘garden birds and cherry blossom’ from Claritystamp. I started by stamping the large branch, the bird feeder and the two small birds, all in Archival ‘shadow grey’. The branch looks a different colour because I’d used a brown ink first but thought it looked too dark, and I obviously didn’t manage to fully clean all the brown ink off the stamp! A fortunate accident, as the colour has worked really well.

Next was to add the blended ink panel, to pick up the design layout. I used two strips of masking tape, and then lightly brushed ‘specked egg’ Distress Oxide’ across the centre of the card.

I then spent a relaxing hour colouring in the images, using Spectrum Noir pencils (I even shaded the bird feeder using a standard pencil). I’m very grateful to Clarity’s Barbara Gray for her colouring lessons over the last year as part of the SHAC shack (Stay Home And Craft) – If you haven’t already discovered it, find out more on Clarity’s YouTube page here

I finished the card by adding the little sentiment across the bottom, and then mounted it onto a 5×7 card blank.

It’s so satisfying to have the confidence to colour images – I would never have done this a year ago. That’s the great thing about crafting – there’s always more to learn and improve.