Hello crafty friends. Our new theme at Sparkles Challenge starts today and, appropriately enough, it’s ‘spring time’! I opted for a tree filled with blossom using the new Branches, Twigs & Sprigs stamps, inspired by the flower filled ones around us here.

Taking a 5×5 card blank, I first used a square embedder and a ball tool to emboss a frame onto it, then stamped one of the twigs into place with black Archival ink to act as the trunk of my tree. I then used a round embedder as a template to draw a pencil guideline to make stamping my blossom easier.

I mounted a few of the little flowers from the set onto stamp pens and set about filling the blossom, using a different colour Distress Oxide for each flower shape – ‘twisted citron’, ‘bundled sage’, ‘rustic wilderness’, ‘kitsch flamingo’ and picked raspberry. I stamped them randomly in the circle, starting with the lighter tones and using one colour at a time, until the tree was full of blossom flowers. Once the ink was dry, I rubbed out my pencil guideline, added the sentiment from the Joy Floral Panel set and grounded the tree by sponging a little ‘rustic wilderness’ across a torn piece of paper.

I think that sentiment can be read in two ways – joy in the simple blossoming of the trees at the start of spring, and joy in the simplicity of crafting! Where do you find your joy?

I’m sharing this with two current challenges – The Four Seasons where they’re celebrating Spring, and Simply Clean & Simple for their ‘anything goes’ option.