Welcome to my crafty blog. It felt a bit strange today not to be working back through Clarity Craft Club stamps – instead I’ve leapt forwards to a brand new set from Stampin’ Up! that you can get through the current Saleabration that’s just launched (it’s available free when you spend £45). Lots of blog challenges are now back in action following the Christmas break and I’ve incorporated two into this card. The layout is from Freshly Made Sketches, with the colours from TGIF challenges

I forgot to take any step by step photos for this one – I was too busy focusing on those cute owls! I started with a piece of SU ‘Tahitian tide’ patterned paper (I substituted this as I don’t have any ‘balmy blue’) and attached it to a 5×7 card blank. I cut a few branches in ‘early espresso’ card using the retired ‘birds & more’ die set, trimmed them to right length and glued them over the patterned paper.

I stamped the three owls in the set using black Versafine Clair ink and coloured them using a ‘dark soft suede’ SU blends pen (the nearest I’d got to ‘early espresso’). I used a little ‘light smoky slate’ around their faces & chests to add shading, as I was leaving them white. I used a SU Write marker in ‘tahitian tide’ and a blender pen to colour their eyes and the bow tie, then added a pop of ‘polished pink’ to the party hat. I fussy cut each owl, mounted them on a scrap piece of card and glued them to the card front.

I finished with one of the sentiment in the set, stamped in the ‘early espresso’ on a trimmed piece of card and attached next to the bottom owl.

Honestly, these owls are just so cute!