Hello friends. I’m back with another design using the Mini Japanese Scene Builder stamps on a CAS card of encouragement, this time sitting my little scene on one of the Landscape Backdrop Prints toppers.

I selected one of the tags (or small toppers) that had the sort of colours I wanted and simply stamped the tree (from the top left of the set) in black Archival ink, lining up the ground line with the base of the printed background.

I added a couple of the little figures to the side (aren’t they just so sweet?) using stamp pens, which are perfect for these tiny stamps, then extended the ground line under them with a micron pen. I shaded in the tree trunk with a Payne’s Grey Polychromo pencil and used a red Perga Colour pen to dot in the blossom. I then used a little ‘squeezed lemonade’ Distress Oxide and a waterbrush to colour in the sun.

Having stamped one of the sentiments below the image, I ran a black Sharpie around the edges of the topper and then starting thinking about how to mount it onto the 5×5 card blank. In the end, rather than add a coloured mount, I opted to draw vertical black lines with the Sharpie and a ruler and sat the topper on them.

I rather like this way of anchoring the topper on the card and it doesn’t detract from the subtle tones on it – you may well see it again! It’s a very stripped back design, but I think with works with the Japanese style. It also fits the ‘botanical’ theme at CAS on Friday, so will be appearing in their gallery!