Hello friends – I’m back with a couple of new events for you today. Our new theme of C for Circles at Alphabet Challenge has coincided with the release of the new Dotted Butterflies stamps – one of Clarity’s Products of the Month for June.

I decided to start with one of my favourite embedder techniques, this time using the smallest one from the Round Embedders collection. I attached it to the front of a 5×5 piece of premium card using low tack tape, then flipped to the reverse and embossed around it with a small ball tool, giving my a lovely frame to start with.

I then searched my ink pads to find a series of blues that would give me an ombre effect for the butterflies, settling on ‘speckled egg’, ‘salvaged patina’, ‘broken china’, ‘peacock feathers’, ‘uncharted mariner’ and ‘chipped sapphire’.

I first stamped two of the sentiments from the butterflies set into the centre of my embossed circle, using ‘watering can’ Archival ink. I picked out three of the smallest butterflies, mounted them on my stamp pens (these are perfect for little stamps) and began to create my butterfly circle. I started at the top left with one butterfly in ‘speckled egg’, then took the next one in ‘salvaged patina’ and stamped it either side of the first one. On to the next one, which then went either side, this time in ‘broken china’.

I carried on round, switching the three butterflies again and moving to a darker shade each time until I finished with ‘chipped sapphire’ for the final one. And that was basically it! I simply attached the topper to a 5×5 card blank and it was done.

I’ve not seen many butterflies in my garden so far this year, hopefully they’ll start appearing now that the weather isn’t so searingly hot! And don’t forget to join Barbara & Paul on Clarity Social TV at 10am & 2pm today for more inspiration with these fab little flutterers!

Meanwhile, I’m heading over to Hand Stamped Sentiments and Allsorts challenges to share these beauties in their galleries.