Hello crafty friends. I’ve got another look at ClarityCrafts ‘calligraphy girls’ stamps today – Barbara Gray will be showcasing them on CreateandCraft TV tomorrow afternoon. I’ve paired one of the girls with the BOW-WOB (black-on-white, white-on-black) papers, using a gel press to add colour to them and pull a print as well. I was inspired by the patterns & colours in the inspiration photo at The Card Concept

So I spent some time this afternoon playing with the papers, inks & gel plate, using the technique Barbara shared in the ‘Moment of Clarity’ online session on Thursday evening. You can find the link to it here I smeared Distress Oxides (‘peacock feathers’ & ‘mermaid lagoon’ onto the four quarters of my gel plate, then laid the BOW-WOB paper onto, gave it a good rub, and lifted it off. I then put a piece of 7×7 stencil card onto the gel plate and pulled a print with the ink that was left behind. In essence, the black design on the paper resists the ink on the gel plate and the white part gets coloured, which then gives you the negative effect when you pull a print. Big Kudos to Sam Crowe in the Clarity design team for figuring this technique out! Here’s what I got – I forgot to photo it before I started chopping the print up!

So as you can see, I cut down part of the stencil card print to use as the background for my image and stamped one of the ‘calligraphy girls’ onto it. I used the mask from the ‘deerscape’ set to create the ground, dragging a blend of the ‘peacock feathers’ & ‘mermaid lagoon’ across it, then shaded in her dress with a black Pergaliner pencil.

I trimmed the coloured BOW-WOB paper to fit on a 6×6 card blank for my background. I shaded in the rest of my lovely lady’s dress with a blue Pergaliner and added dots to the black part with a metallic gel pen. I had a little offcut from the gle print, so stamped the sentiment onto that, edged it with a Sharpie and added it to the card front.

I’m not sure where she’s headed in her finery – she’s a bit late for Royal Ascot and the Buckingham Palace garden parties! Wherever it is, I hope she has a fab time!