Hello there. I needed a card for a friend who’s about to have surgery, and remembered ClarityCrafts’ poppies stencil, which hasn’t seen any ink for some time! The Paper Players have got a clean & simple one-layer challenge this week (right up my street!), which I teamed with the lovely palette from Creative Colour Challenges. I’m also going to share it with Happy Little Stampers for their stencil challenge.

The poppies are a 7×7 stencil, so I reached for a 7×7 card blank. I attached the stencil to the card front with a strip of low tack tape, putting the card fold at the top which made it easier. I used sponges to then add ink through the stencil – ‘hickory smoke’ for the leaves & stems, with ‘ripe persimmon’ & ‘picked raspberry’ on the poppies & seedheads. Working with sponges this way does mean you can focus the colour into specific areas.

I loved the way the colours blended through the stencil, but thought it needed something more. I retrieved one of my favourite stencils – the brick wall – lined it up on the card and used a brush to lightly add ‘hickory smoke’ though it around the flowers. I’m a bit cross as I was too heavy handed up at the top of the image!

The largest of the square embedders sat neatly around the image (for one, I did check before I started…!), which nicely put an embossed frame around the stencilled area. Job done!

Thanks for dropping in. I’ve got quite a bit going on at the moment, so it’s always nice to pull out a card style that doesn’t take too long (or create too much mess!) Here’s a summary of what I’ve used today – I’ll be back again tomorrow with another creation.