Welcome to my crafty blog. Today’s card uses the ‘friendship flower’ stamp set by Julie Hickey and the layout sketch from Fusion card challenge. I also took inspiration from Fusion’s photo with the red flowers (although these are clearly not poppies) and added in the elements from the diagonal on TicTacToe‘s grid – scoring, stripes & ribbon.

I started by stamping the ‘friendship flower’ in black Archival ink onto a piece of white card and then coloured the image using a waterbrush and Distress Oxides in ‘festive berries’ and ‘bundled sage’.

I added three scored lines on the top right and bottom left of the image, to fill the white space, and then attached a strip of black card down each side.

I remembered that I’d got some black striped paper in my stash and thought that would provide a good contrast on each side of the card. The topper then sat in the centre of a 6×6 card blank.

I finished by stamping the sentiment from the set in black Archival, and then added a small bow as the final touch, to pick up the ‘ribbon’ element from TicTacToe. I do like the way it balances out against the two flowers.

Thanks for dropping in. I spent a very productive afternoon with my crafting friend today, finalising the plans for our craft group that will meet in person on Thursday for the first time since February last year. I’m so looking forward to it – it will be great to see people again and feels like another small step back on the road to ‘normal’ life.