Hello crafty friends. Well I’ve stepped away from dies for a minute as we’ve got a new theme over at the Alphabet Challenge. We’re onto the letter T and Lynda has chosen ‘trees’ for this one.

I’ve added stencils to my Clarity Craft Club membership for the coming year, and decided to invest in a couple of back issue ones that caught my eye. I thought this one with the two trees in a circle would be useful for lots of occasions. I started by attaching the stencil to a square of white card that I’d trimmed down to fit a 6×6 card blank. I used a blending brush to add Distress Oxide in ‘stormy sky’ around the outer part of the image. I then lifted the stencil (I kept it taped to the card, just folded it back) and brushed ‘antique linen’ across the whole piece. It’s come out a bit more peachy than I expected – I don’t think my brush can have been properly cleaned! I then laid the stencil back in place and blended more of the ‘stormy sky’ around it to darken the image.

I used a soft pencil to add shading around the tree branches, smoothing it out with a Pergamano blending nib. I then stamped the squirrel and the bird in ‘watering can’ Archival ink and added pencil shading underneath them as well.

I mounted the topper onto a layer of dark blue card before attaching it to the card blank. I finished with one of Clarity’s word stickers.

Thanks for dropping in. Why don’t you come and join us at the Alphabet Challenge – we’d love to see what you create with trees. The challenge is open until Thursday 13th January.