I’m back again, as there’s so much going on this weekend for ClarityCrafts‘ birthday celebrations! So here’s an early glimpse of a new set being released tomorrow – the ‘seashore scene’ three-way overlay stamps. There are 4 images in this set, with three stamps for each – the outline, the infill and the background. I’ve used two of the images for this card – they tesselate (link together) beautifully to create a scene, which works for Make My Monday‘s beach theme, with the seagulls picking up the ‘feathered friends’ from CAS on Friday.

The first step was to stamp the outlines for images 3 and 4 in black Archival ink onto a 6×4 piece of stencil card. The key thing here is about lining up the images – I sat the first outline where I wanted it, then picked it up on a 4×4 mega mount, aligning the markings on the mount with the edge of the card, so I could easily stamp the image back into place. I then repeated that with the second outline stamp. Switching to the infill stamps, I sponged ‘weathered wood’ Distress Oxide onto the birds and boat, then added ‘bundled sage’ Distress Ink to the trees and ground. The great thing about these stamps is that you don’t have to add all the colour in one go – it’s fairly easy to go back in a couple of times with the infill stamp to build up the shades, lining it up over the outline image (the trick to remember is that the image comes into focus when it’s lined up)

Next was to add the background colour, using ‘bundled sage’, ‘broken china’ and ‘scattered straw’ Distress Inks. Once again I gradually built up the background colours, stamping several times.

I embossed a rectangle embedder around the scene to frame it, mounted it on a layer of Amazonia companion paper and attached it to a 5×7 card blank. The finishing touch was a word sticker, which picked up how I thought the birds were feeling!

We did get an early play with this set on the recent Clarity summer retreat, but now everyone’s going to be able to share in the fun! These images work singly, as well as in pairs, triplets or the whole four for the complete panorama – what’s not to love!