Welcome to my crafty blog. I’ve been playing again with the lovely ‘sweet daisy’ stamp set from Julie Hickey Designs – I just love the clean, graphic style of these stamps. Today’s card picks up inspiration from a couple of blog challenges – the colours are from Color Throwdown and the design reflects the layout at Freshly Made Sketches

I started by stamping the three ‘vases’ for the daisies onto a piece of white card. These are made by masking off the top of the tag in the stamp set – I can’t claim any credit for this brilliant idea, as I first saw it from someone else who shared it on Julie’s Facebook page. Once the vases were stamped, I added the daisies. The great thing about clear stamps is that they can be repositioned, so I was able to reshape the single daisy so it curved towards the centre from both sides.

I then used my Claritystamp Perga Liners, which have a very fine nib, to colour the stems green, and add yellow accents to the flower heads.

I had previously cut some masks to fit the daisy heads, so used those again and brushed Distress Oxides in orange shades to highlight around the flower heads. I used ‘dried marigold’ first, and then added a little ‘ripe persimmon’ to darken around the flowers.

I had planned to make this on a 5×7 card blank, but realised that I’d managed to get a spot of orange ink at one side of the card (and couldn’t work out a way to cover it up!). On to plan B then – I trimmed the topper down to fit one a 6×6 card blank and edged it with a black Sharpie. I added the sentiment from the stamp set in black Archival ink, and then attached the piece to the card blank.

The spring flowers are starting to emerge in my garden – I think the daffodils will be open this week. It will be so lovely to have some colour outside again.