Hello crafty friends. Gosh, life is rather busy at the moment – I thought the summer holiday period was supposed to be quieter, but things have sped up in my world with Design Team samples to make and a small grandson to help look after (plus a few work meeting too!) Anyway, it’s so much better than sitting at home feeling bored – and I am off on holiday in a few weeks, so I shouldn’t complain! But back to today’s card and I’ve got another set that’s in Clarity’s Half Price Members’ Sale this week – it’s been languishing on the shelf for far too long, so meet the Spring & Summer Mandala Rings stamp set!

I started with one of the small squares of premium card and stamped the top mandala ring from the set onto it with black Archival ink. I then used a small Mega Mount with it’s etched markings to line up the little summer scene in the centre/

Having masked the centre image with a pre-cut one from the set, I could then brush ‘peacock feathers’ Distress Oxide around it, sweeping ‘salvaged patina’ around the outer part of the mandala.

I shaded in the mandala ring with ‘cobalt green’ and ‘rose carmine’ Polychromo pencils.

Finally, colour went into the rest of the scene with my Polychromos as well – that harvested field is looking very parched, just like the ones around here after all the heat we’ve had (it hasn’t rained here properly for over a month now which is not the usual UK summer!)

I used my favourite square embedder and a ball tool to emboss a frame on the front of a 5×5 card blank, then simply ran a black Sharpie around the edges of the stopper and stuck it into place. I finished by brushing a little more of the ‘salvaged patina’ onto a piece of scrap card, then stamped the sentiment onto it, trimmed it down and edged with a Sharpie and simply glued it into place.

So what do you think of my little summer scene? It’s been a bit cooler here this weekend (actually, back to the normal seasonal temperatures, which means it’s dropped by about 12 degrees C!) Being British, I would appreciate some rain though, as would my garden!

I’ve picked up the seasonal themes from a few challenges for this one too, starting with the moodboard at Just Us Girls and adding the ‘summer’ theme from Four Seasons and We Love Stamping.