Christmas in July

Good Morning....I  have been a bad blogger and not done any posts since the last challenge and we are nearly at the next one!!!
I don't know where the time went ...well I do....The run up to the end of term was really busy at work even with the year 11 not there as they had finished and then the Year 10 out on work experience. We did have to pack our rooms up and also had the Year 6s in for their transition days, then the year 5 came for a Super learning week! Its was go go go til the very end!
I also managed a weekend with Mandy Branston from July 11- 13th which was fab and we got to go to the Clarity East Midlands workshop where I met up with Sally-Anne Hanes and Kim Shaw. 
Then last week I headed off to east Sussex for the Clarity Retreat with Barbara Gray! Paul Church was helping her, Jayne was making sure that we were fed and watered and Dave was doing everything else! It was like a well oiled machine and we all came away having learned a lot and made and affirmed friendships that I am sure will last many years. Good memories were made.

Anyway I haven't shared last months cards with you yet and I will just put them all on here as this coming Sunday is the Clarity stamps show on Create and craft. Barbara will be on at 9am for a couple of hours with some great new stamps for you all.

So here are the samples I did for the last show

Glittery Baubles

outside

inside

Panel Card

Glittery lights

Gilding Flakes

Alcohol inks on Acetate. Easel card

Anyway I will see you again soon I hope

Happy Crafting

Just about Anything Goes( as long as it's clarity!)

Well good afternoon to you and sorry I am a bit late posting this ...work did get in the way today! I also cannot believe how quickly that month of June has gone....it'll be Christmas before we know it!

Anyway A new month and that means a new Challenge over at the Clarity Challenge blog and this month Anything Goes as long as it is clarity stamps.

Remember that you are only to use clarity stamps to make a project, and for those of you who are not keen on stamping there are now lots of Clarity stencils for you to use too! And it is worth giving it a go as we will pick a winner randomly and that person will receive a voucher worth £50 to spend at Clarity stamps. 

Well done to the winner form the last challenge which will be announced in the next couple of days along with the top five chosen by the design team...it gets harder and harder each month!

For my card I decided to do a bit of pattern building and not using the inkadinkado wheel or cog!!!

And I decided to try and do a tutorial for you in pictures...I am terrible at remembering to photograph each stage but think I managed to cover it with this one.

So...  here goes

These are the things I used. The card is a piece of A4 Theuva card.

I stamped the corner in black archival turning the card as I went.

Then I stamped the sentiment in the middle

I then went round the outside of the shape. 

I then trimmed around it.

I then used butterscotch ink and brushed in a circular movement leaving the centre and the outside white.

I then brushed the corners with the blue but overlapped the yellow slightly. 

Without adding more ink I then brushed the corners again through some sequin waste

I then matted this on to silver then put it to one side to create teh background

  Using an 8 x 8 card blank I wanted to create a background using the words from the journalling set and the squares

Here are the stamps I used

I brushed over the stamped images randomly with yellow and blue ink then added the topper I had created earlier to the card in the centre of this background.

And here is the finished card

I hope you like it and feel that you could have a go at the challenge. For more inspiraation pop over to the challenge blog and see the fab projects the rest of the team have done. There are links to their blogs on there.

Then its over to you!
Anything Goes (as long as it's Clarity!!!)

Happy Crafting

xxx