Hello there! Lots of new stuff to share with you today – it’s the launch of the new ‘Japanese Flowers & Butterflies sampler’ set from ClarityCrafts, plus our new theme at Alphabet Challenge. We’ve now reached X in the current cycle and Dawn has given us XOXO (as in hugs & kisses). I had to think a bit laterally for this one, but found a solution as you’ll see, adding in the colour scheme from The Card Concept.

As I often do, I started with one of Clarity’s small squares of stencil card and stamoed one of the butterfly round images into the centre – the sharpness of the details on these stamps is just fab! I covered the image with a mask that I’d cut using a nested circle die, then bruhed ‘bundled sage’ Distress Oxide outwards from it. I then used the infill stamps to add colour to the image, sponging ‘kitsch flamingo’ and ‘picked raspberry’ onto the butterfly. The flowers were a bit more tricky, as I wanted to use two colours but they were too small to use a sponge for the ink – the solution was to use cotton buds to ink them up with ‘bundled sage’ & ‘walnut stain’ Distress Oxides.

I decided to make a frame for the image using Xs & Os and the Timestamp Creations alphabet letters were the perfect size – I started at the bottom and then worked around the circle alternating the letters using black Archival ink. I added a mount of Indian Summer companion paper and attached the topper to a 5×5 card blank that I’d already embossed a frame on to using a square embedder. The finishing touch was one of the KISS word stickers that picked up the theme as well.

So, if you tune in to Clarity Social TV today at 10am & 2pm UK time (or catch up later), you can watch Barbara putting these stamps through their paces. And then why not join us in the Alphabet Challenge gallery and share your cards using XOXO?