Welcome to my crafty blog and a card inspired by the current theme of ‘brave’ at Time Out challenges. I’ve teamed the ‘happy birday’ set from Claritystamp with the ‘brave and strong’ sentiment from Visible Image (and used another background from my stash in the process!)

I started with a stamped background I found in my folder, which I’d made previously using Clarity’s square backdrop stamp. I think I’d brayered Distress Oxides in ‘iced spruce’ and ‘chipped sapphire’ onto it, but as usual I hadn’t noted the colours on the back of the card! One day I’ll learn…

I stamped the long & short vines from the ‘happy birday’ set around the background to form the frame using ‘iced spruce’, and then added the shading with a Spectrum Noir pencil.

Next was to stamp the sentiment in the centre with ‘watering can’ Archival ink. I added the little leaf spray into a couple of the corners and by the sentiment, together with two of the birds from the set.

I cut the image down using a square die and then made a mat to mount it by brushing the ‘iced spruce’ and ‘chipped sapphire’ around the edge of a piece of smooth white card. The whole piece then went onto a 6×6 card blank.

The colours are very subtle, but I like the effect.