Hello friends. I’ve got another of my demos from yesterday afternoon’s Clarity Social TV to share today, this time using Linda’s Floral Steps stamp set. These images really made me think of a little rustic French cottage and I decided to make a fancy fold card to make the most of the steps!

I started by embossing the Brick Wall stencil onto the front of a 5×5 card blank, then brushed ‘pumice tone’ Distress Oxide through it. You may be able to see that the embossing looks a little warped on the card front… There’s a bit of a story behind this but, basically, I had the ‘bright’ idea to try to emboss the card with a small square plastic embedder under the stencil in the hope that I’d have a nice plain square on the front to stamp in to. It didn’t quite go to plan – the extra pressure resulted in my little embedder also getting the impression of the brick wall on it but, even worse, the stencil slid on the plastic embedder while going through the machine and got stretched! I won’t be doing that again – what follows now is Plan B!

I stamped the window image onto scrap card using ‘acorn’ Archival ink, shaded it with Pergaliner pencils and fussy cut it. I cut a piece of scrap card 10cm x 7cm, scored it at 3cm to give it a fold and stamped the steps onto the larger side of the card. I again coloured it with my blue & yellow pergaliners, then used the ‘warm grey’ Polychromo pencil to shade in the little wall – I also scribbled the grey between the plant pots & railings, to soften the white card. That too was then fussy cut long the outer edge and the railings.

I was then on to construction! You’ve no doubt worked out that the steps form a flap on the card – I didn’t want it attached to the back of the card, so glued it down on the inside, sitting along the edge. I should have said that this is one of those rare times when you actually do want your card blank to open from the left (not just because you’ve stuck your topper on upside down!) I also added a couple of pieces of scrap card to the inside, as I was sticking a square of card over it to hide the construction – they would ensure it sat flat.

So having cut my card for the inside, I added one of the All Occasions Rub On sentiments plus the little daisy from the stamp set and glued it into place. Closing the card front, I sat the window in the centre, above the steps.

Finally the flap with the steps closed in to complete the card!

This really does look like one of those lovely summer holiday cottages – wouldn’t you just want to be staying there? It also works for a few more current challenges – the blue and touches of yellow are from Colorful Options, the blooms are one of Triple B‘s three aspects, and my gentle grey walls work with the blue & yellow to meet Color Dare‘s latest challenge and finally Just Us Girls are playing with stencils.