Hello friends. I’m back with the last of my design team samples for the new ‘Nutcracker’ stamp set from ClarityCrafts – this time I’ve done a bit of masking and added the trees from the ‘winter cabin reflection’ set. The colours from the current challenge at Sunday Stamps were ideal and I also picked up the vibe from the inspiration picture at TGIF challenges.

The first step was to stamp the Nutcracker onto a square of stencil card with black Archival ink. I cut a mask for him using Clarity’s blank mask material, covered him over and stamped the trees from the ‘winter cabin reflection’ set into the background with ‘library green’ Archival ink. Before removing the mask, I swept ‘speckled egg’ across the clouds mask for the sky and sponged it across torn copy paper to give the ground a little depth. I could then use the infill stamps and Distress Inks to colour the Nutcracker – I went with ‘black soot’, ‘pine needles’ & ‘hickory smoke’. A gold Posca pen added the highlights to his braiding, etc.

I added the sentiment from the ‘SHAC baubles’ set before mounting him on a panel of gold card cut with the ‘dots’ nested doodle frame-it panel die and attaching to a 6×6 card blank.

I wonder if the Nutcracker in this Christmas’s performance by the English National Ballet will look as smart? I saw a poster advertising it at the tube station when I went into London yesterday morning!