ATC's using Clarity Stamps

No 1 - Theme of Summer

In May I was fortunate enough to attend Barbara Gray's 2 day workshop retreat at Cowden. This was one of the most amazing craft experiences ever! Barbara is such a warm hearted and generous lady with a wealth of talent and skills to offer. I was truly blown away and the whole thing left me quite emotional and reflective.
I was also lucky enough to meet the most incredible bunch of crafters whom I now consider to be great and loyal friends. We have all since kept in touch in our "special" little group ;-) and one of the ladies had the great idea of starting a Clarity ATC swap between us. Now I have never made Artist Trading Cards before so this was a challenge, artwork fitted on to 2.5" x 3.5" pieces of card to give inspiration to others as well as being little keepsake to treasure. There are 14 of us in the group so 13 different "themes" were chosen, one for each month, and each month we make and send our little work of art to a member on the list in rotation so that everyone gets their own little keepsake. By the end we will have all collected 13 mini masterpieces!
I thought I'd share my makes with you one here so that they may hopefully be of some inspiration and give you some ideas.

The first month was "Summer" and I wanted to create a beautiful summer's day!...

I worked out the proportions on the card and lightly sketched the gingham cloth. The sun was masked using a circle cut from a 1" pinch and the clouds added along with the greenery and hills. The other section of the sun mask was used to enable me to colour the sun. I then stamped the pear tree and the flight of birdsand the kite. I coloured the leaves on the tree with a green pro-marker and nib. I then stamped and coloured the tea set and cake, coloured again with pro-markers. Once this was done I could fill in my gingham cloth using a pro-marker and ruler as a guide. The kite was stamped again to enable me to decoupage it and add the ribbon. Also the cake and top of the cake stand were stamped and decoupaged. As a finishing touch I added the mini ric-rac to the cloth edge and glossy accents to the china to make it more realistic.

All Clarity stamps used - Kite, Pear tree, Flight of birds and stamps from the the remountable baking set.

I hope you like this little offering, another coming soon...
Karen xXx