Welcome to my crafty blog. I finally got round to using the March stamps from the Claritystamp craft club – my sister, my craft buddy & I have organised a monthly ‘Clarity crafternoon’ online so we encourage each other to use our stamps, and I love how we can produce such different outcomes from the same set of stamps. March’s stamps are a lovely little set called ‘reeds & insects’, and I decided to use up a couple more pieces from my stash of inky backgrounds to create these two cards.

Starting with the one on the left, I stamped the reeds onto the background card using black Archival ink.

I stamped the little butterfly twice, and then shaded all the images with Spectrum Noir pencils, using colours to tone in with the background.

I finished by adding the sentiment (this one is from Stampin’ Up!’s ‘a touch of ink’ set), then mounted the topper onto a piece of white card to give a narrow border, and then onto a larger piece of dark blue card. The whole image then sat nicely on a 6×6 card blank.

I’m going to share this card with the new challenge at CASology where their theme is ‘hello’

For the second card, I stamped the reeds twice, as I had a larger piece, and again coloured them with my Spectrum Noir pencils. I also added one of the Clarity moon masks, brushed a little more ‘wild bilberry’ Artistry Ink around it to give the effect of the moon, and then trimmed the card down to fit on an A6 card blank.

All I then needed to do was add the sentiment, edge the topper with a black Sharpie and attach it to an A6 card blank.

These were really quick and easy to make – exactly how I like them! I’ve realised that I didn’t add any of the insects to the second card, so I’ll save those for next time!