Hello again. We’re busy with a second day at ClarityCrafts Open Days today, and I’m still sharing tips & techniques using the new landscape masks & stamps. The South Downs set is rapidly becoming a favourite of mine and I went with an autumn vibe on this card that I’ve been demoing follk who’ve been stopping by my table for a look. It beautifully picks up the ‘autumn’ themes from Four Seasons and Cardz4Guyz, taking the colours from Color Dare.

The first stage was to emboss a raised frame onto a 6×6 card blank using a couple of Clarity’s embedders. I started with one of the nested square embedders, attached it to the card front with low tack tape, turned to the inside and used a bone folder followed by an embossing tool to emboss the card, working against the inner edge of the embedder. That gives a lovely raised effect on the card front. I then lined up one of the regular square embedders on top of the raised portion, turned again to the inside of the card front and embossed against the outer edge. That gives you the debossed effect on the front, leaving a fab raised frame on your card.

Having done all that, I used low tack tape to mask around the card edges, covering the frame, then lined up all the ‘South Downs’ mask pieces into the central area. Removing each of the ground pieces one at a time, I blended ‘ripe persimmon’, ‘carved pumpkin’ & ‘dried marigold’ Distresss Oxides into them, using a sponge to sweep a little of the latter two shades into the sun area. I replaced the moon mask and removed the sky area, then used the’ clouds’ mask to lightly brush ‘uncharted mariner’ Distress Oxide into the sky.

Using black Archival ink, I added the tree, together with the couple and their dog, using a torn piece of copy paper and a sponge to lightly add black ink below them as a ground shadow.

I used one of the small leaf stamps and the three inks to them add the foliage onto the tree, finishing with the sentiment from the ‘meadow treescape’ stamp set.

Gosh, that felt like a very involved description, but it’s a great way to create a one layer card and worth the effort! Hopefully everyone at the Open Days has thought so too…