Welcome to my crafty blog. It’s time for another challenge over at the Alphabet challenge blog and this week Helen has chosen ‘E for Easy Make’. Cards need to be a simple design, with minimal layers and no embellishments.

I decided to go for a CAS (clean and simple) card as my design team contribution, and am linking in with two other challenges. Less is More have asked us to use our favourite technique, and CASology have got ‘photo’ as their theme.

I started with my favourite technique – regular readers of this little blog will know that I’m partial to an inky background. I can’t bear to waste any of the ink on my craft mat when I’ve been colouring or blending, so always spritz it with water and mop it up onto a spare piece of card to use later. I have a growing stash of these – here’s a few samples!

I took one of the peach & green pieces, and laid one of the Claritystamp ‘riverside landscape reflection’ masks onto it.

All I then needed to do was drag ‘watering can’ Archival ink through the mask onto the card using a make up sponge. Really easy! This would work just as well with a piece of designer paper – great for using up scraps.

I then die cut a photo frame in white card. I’ve had these dies for years and had forgotten about them – they look like Polaroid photos. I attached the card topper to a 5×7 card blank and glued the photo frame onto it. One of the Claritystamp word stickers was the perfect finishing touch.

Simples! One of my good friends has just retired today after 40 plus years in nursing and midwifery (we trained together) and I thought this was the ideal message for the next stage of her life.