January 4 th 2016
Happy new year!
My New Years resolution in January 2015 was to enter the Clarity challenge every month! I made it in January and then dismally failed thereafter.
Work, life and a redesign of the garden intervened and so I have renewed the resolution this year and plan to enter both challenges through 2016 including the calendar challenge. We ll see how I get on.........
Here is my entry for the 'say it with flowers' challenge for January.

I have made two cards but think this will be my entry, I have posted the other one underneath.I wanted to have a go at layering using clarity stencils and a variety of acrylic paints and distress inks/ markers. I also wanted to use the clear, gloss textile paste to see what happened!
I used various stencils (see if you can spot them all)!
I love the fact that the acrylic paint acts as a resist to the distress inks.
Dotty wave; lantern pods; brick wall; ocean swirl; ABC stencil; clock stencil;
The dotty wave; brick wall and ABC stencil and lantern pods were done with acrylic paint first.
Distress inks; mustard seed; wild honey; pickled raspberry; dusty concord; peacock feathers and chipped sapphire round the edges.
I used transparent gloss texture paste to add the dotty wave over the top, I used the Chinese lanterns in the first one I made but it was a bit over powering and also the texture paste was too thick.
I love the effect and all the layers give it a nice 'grungy' look.
The flower stamp is Gentian and columbine which I stamped onto 7 x 7 stencil card and masked while I did the background.
I like the texture paste effect which adds texture but doesn't detract from the detail.
Second card