Welcome to my crafty blog. I treated myself to another new set of stamps, ‘Pretty Perennials’, that were reduced to half price by Stampin’ Up! as they are about to be retired. It’s such a pretty set I gave into temptation having recently done a class using them with Joanne James (aka The Crafty Owl). In fact, this card was inspired by one of the designs from Joanne’s class, together with a couple of current challenges. I’ve used the sketch from The Paper Players and the colours from Just Add Ink

I decided to reverse the sketch and put the flowers around the border, rather than in the centre. I masked an A6 card blank using a sticky note, and stamped the flowers and leaves around the edge using Distress Oxides in ‘wilted violet’ and ‘salvaged patina’, plus ‘shadow grey’ Archival.

I then stamped the large ‘happy’ sentiment and the little ‘birthday’ onto a piece of white card and cut them out with an oval die. I added ‘salvaged patina’ around the edge using a blending brush, as it looked too stark against the card when left white.

The topper went onto the card blank using foam pads, and I added a few purple Glossies to finish

Thanks for dropping in. I took another step back towards normal life today, as I went into work instead of joining meetings from home online. It is so lovely to connect with colleagues in person – lets hope it continues.