Hi all, and welcome to my first post as a member of the 'Clarity Challenge Blog' design team.  I'm hoping that you will be inspired by my work as I have been inspired by the previous team.
    I'm afraid I'm not very technical so my blog is, at the present, very basic.  Hopefully I will be able to change that as time goes by.
    My offering for the first challenge 'Things with Wings' ended up being nothing how I first imaged it.  I started off with the Clarity bird stencil, and put some texture paste through, then let it dry thoroughly.  I replaced the stencil and inked through with a versamark ink pad, removed the stencil and sprinkled with clear embossing powder.  When I heated it the paste bubbled a bit and gave a lovely texture.
    The whole thing was then painted over with Daler Rowney System 3 acrylics, a mixture of red, orange and rich gold.  The highlights on the birds comes from wiping with a babywipe and kitchen towel.  The birds still didn't stand out enough so I used a white Wink of Stella pen to go around them.  The branches were painted over with some Pebeo gilding wax (fantastic stuff) to give some more bling.
    I picked the frame up for a pound in some homeware store, I covered it in black gesso, then some black gloss paint to get it really black, then rubbed more gilding wax on with my fingers.  Once it's dry you can buff it up to a lovely shine.  I then stamped with the large Clarity flourish stamp with
versamark and heat embossed with black embossing powder to finish off.

I do hope you like, and next time I will remember to take photos during the crafting process and not just after.  If anyone wants any more info, or help with anything crafty, please leave me a message.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!