Hello there. Well, it’s Sunday again so I’ve gone back into my Caritystamp Craft Club goodies and today am using the ‘keep it simple’ stamp from April 2021. This is such a great image – it works for lots of occasions & I’ve used it quite a few times over the last year.

I decided to use it in the background with the latest Craft Club die, the hot air balloon. I’ve used the layout from Freshly Made Sketches and the palette from Color Throwdown this time. I also thought it would work with the ‘windy’ theme from CASology, although the balloon does look like it’s just floating through the sky on a very gentle breeze!

I started with a panel of white card, blended ‘broken china’ Distress Oxide onto it and then stamped the tree landscape in black Archival. I attached it to a 5×7 card blank.

I cut the hot air balloon die into white card, and trimmed it to leave a narrow frame. I used a couple of square nested dies to cut another frame, blended the ‘broken china’ onto it, then attached both pieces to the card front. I blended ‘squeezed lemonade’, ‘ripe persimmon’ & ‘villainous potion’ Distress Oxides onto a scrap piece, and then recut the balloon from it. I then paper pieced the balloon and the basket. This was a bit tricky – I forgot to put an adhesive layer on the back of the card before cutting it, so had to glue each piece individually. Not easy with the very little bits!

I finished with one of Clarity’s word stickers.

Don’t you think the balloon looks like it’s floating through a valley? That was a happy accident! I was originally going to put it on a solid blue background, but cut it down to make the border when it looked too heavy against the rest of the layout. Serendipity is a wonderul thing!