Thursday’s blog is always blue, so here’s a cool blue Christmas card I made, using the Clarity Carol stamps. There’s a whole collection of them: We three kings, While shepherds watched, I saw Three ships, In the bleak midwinter (my personal favourite set), and others. But here we have God rest ye merry gentlemen, complete with merry gentleman and family!

So how did I do the background? Easy there’s a brilliant rooftops Claritymask available, which make this a cinch. You do have to cut out a mask for the musical banner, but that’s all.

This is a sky-brayering exercise! I used the square white gelli plate card, and Black and Denim Adirondack ink pads mixed on a Splodgemat, to make a lovely dark night sky.

Sometimes folks get daunted by stamp-masking, but it really isn’t all that complex.

Just stamp the Carol in black Archival on the card,

stamp it straightaway on a Post-it with the more faded ink,

cut the Postit out,

cover up the image with the mask and add a moon mask.

That’s all you have to do.

Then you can add the background without spoiling the image in the front.

Next thing here is the Rooftops mask. Now you can cut it out from a piece of copy paper, or you can treat yourself to a Claritymask. This one is even in the Set of Landscape Masks, which, I have to say, is just about the best thing we have come up with.

The carollers are a Silhouette Stamp, so no need to mask. You can place them wherever you fancy in the front, but I recommend Black Archival for a good solid black.

The little blue detail dots you can see are created just using a piece of sequin waste and very lightly brushing Denim blue. We’ve got the most awesome stencil brushes; you should try them.

So there you have it, a lovely, blue note for Christmas. Anyway, I must get off to the NEC Exhibition! Doors open at 9am this year! I am really looking forward to it!

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