Welcome to my crafty blog and a quick showcase for the ‘room with a view’ aperture dies from ClarityCrafts. They’ve been on offer this week (until midnight tonight) at 30% – Clarity are 30 years old this year as a company and are featuring a ‘design of the week’ throughout the year with a reduction to celebrate. Who doesn’t love a bargain? Back to the card and I’ve gone with a last minute contribution to this week’s Color Thowdown challenge

I started by cutting the die into a piece of Clarity’s stencil card, precisely because I wanted to use it as a stencil! I attached it to a square of cream card and then started adding the ink. I sponged ‘mustard seed’ Distress Oxide around the sun, then brushed ‘salvaged patina’ and ‘pumice stone’ around the rest of the image. I moved the low tack tape form the bottom to the top as I worked my way down the card, so I could cover the whole piece.

Now I was thinking at this point that I’d have two cards made, using the stencilled image for one and the inked die cut for the other. I just couldn’t work out what to mount the die cut onto, though, and I also thought the stencilled one needed a little more definition – at which point I decided to put the die cut back on the base card! I actually offset it very slightly, moving it down and to the right, which gave the image a highlight from the cream background, then glued it into place.

That deifinitely worked! I mounted it onto a layer of black card and attached it to a 6×6 blank that I’d made from a piece of cream card. One of Clarity’s word stickers finished it off nicely.

Hope you like this little scene – it was very easy, once I’d figured out what I was doing (nothing new there!)