Hello again! I’m back with a second card as the celebrations have started for ClarityCrafts 31st birthday weekend! Barbara & Paul are on Create & Craft TV with several shows through until Sunday afternoon, bringing us fab new products and a few older favourites! I’ve used the flowers from the ‘special day sentiments’ set (it will be on Barbara’s show at 11am tomorrow), for this card, taking the layout from Freshly Made Sketches and the palette from Color Throwdown.

I decided to use a 5×7 card blank and started by creating the background with Clarity’s papers (a great design for your offcuts!). I had a strip of green Amazonia companion paper, which I cut into two and glued to each side of the card front – I use wet glue when I’m doing this, so I’ve got a bit of ‘wiggle’ room to line it up exactly with the edges of the card front. I found a fab green & yellow piece of Antarctica designer paper, which I trimmed to the length of the card front, then glued a narrow srtip of scrap white card down one side. I could then attach it to the card front, overlapping the two edge pieces.

I found another offcut of white card, sponged ‘squeezed lemonade’ and ‘lucky clover’ Distress Oxides onto the flower image and stamped it into place, adding ‘happy birthday’ from the ‘entwined sentiments’ set. I turned the card round and repeated the process with the flowers to sit them under the sentiment – that was easier that trying to align them upside down! I agve the ink a minute to dry, then cut the topper out with an oval nested die.

I still needed to add in the pink for CTD’s challenge, so picked up the ‘butterflies & birds silhouette miniatures’ stamps, adding a couple of butterflies in ‘picked raspberry’. I then simply added a few strips of scrap card on the back of the oval (that just lifts it slightly & is cheaper than buying foam pads!) and attached it to the card front.

It’s brilliant to be celebrating 31 years of Clarity being in business! The flower image was amongst the earliest stamps I got from Clarity (back when they came pre-mounted on their handles and before they had even thought about producing dies and papers!) and was re-released earlier this year. Here’s to the next 31 years!