Well, we’re into the last few hours of the Clarity Crafts Half Price Members’ Sale (it ends at midnight) and I thought I’d shine a spotlight onto a couple of stamp sets that I hadn’t previously thought of using together – the potted plants and the gardening set from the mini hobbies collection.

To be honest, the ‘water’ challenge at Inspire.Create challenges set me off down the road for this one (it’s a bit of a different angle on the theme, but I’ve been doing my best to keep my poor plants hydrated in the heatwave!) and I love the new colour palette at Sunday Stamps.

I worked on one of Clarity’s small 3.5″ squares of stencil card, first stamping the watering can. I masked it off (having previously cut this using Clarity’s blank material) and then stamped the outlines for two of the potted plants, using a strip of low tack tape as a guideline to get them all level.

I then set about colouring the images using a range of techniques! The potted plants come with infill stamps, so I used those for the pots sponging ‘carved pumpkin’ Distress Oxide onto one and ‘tattered rose’ onto the other. I shaded the leaves with my Pergaliner pencils and coloured the watering can with ‘stormy sky’ Distress Oxide and a waterbrush – it gave me a look reminiscent of grey metal.

Having done all that, I masked off the watering can & both pots to then be able to lightly sponge the ‘stormy sky’ across a piece of torn copy paper to ground them. I added the sentiment from the Gardening set, ran a black Sharpie around the edges of the topper and popped it on a 5×5 card blank.

So that’s another CAS offering from me! I hope you’ve been able to grab a bargain in the Clarity sale – the clock is ticking down to midnight (although I don’t think either Paul or Barbara will turn into pumpkins!)