Welcome to my crafty blog. A bit of a change from my usual style today – although not too far out of my comfort zone. I’ve gone for what Barbara Gray calls ‘clean grunge’, after watching the launch of Clarity’s new ‘grunge elements’ stamp sets on TV yesterday. I thought I’d have a go at using some of my existing stamps to see what I could create (although the new sets are definitely on my wish list!).

Both cards started with the large square background stamp and Distress Oxides in ‘chipped sapphire’ and ‘stormy sky’ (added with a sponge and then lightly spritzed with water before stamping). I then masked off the frame with low tack tape, as I didn’t want the images to go over the edge. For the circles one, I brushed a little of the ‘chipped sapphire’ through the ‘doodleology heart swirls’ stencil and then stamped the ‘rings’ stamp in black Archival. I also added the small stamp from the ‘doodleology circles’ set in the opposite corner and finished with one of the sentiments from Julie Hickey’s ‘mandala’ stamp set.

It is quite clean & tidy for a grungy style card, so I pushed myself a tiny bit further with the second one – but not too far!

I’d again stamped the large background stamp and masked off the frame with low tack tape. I used the ‘chain link fence’ stencil with ‘chipped sapphire’ to add the first layer of texture and then added the ‘chain link’ stamp in Archival black. It did look far too clean at this point, so I used the ‘abstract texture’ stamp from Clarity’s craft club in January 2020 to add some more detail in the opposite corner and along the edges of the chain link stamp. This one was again finished with the Julie Hickey sentiment stamp.

I think I need to try this again and push myself even further with adding texture, etc, to the images. I might even go outside the frame next time!