Worcester Black Pear and Clarity - Birthday card

The main stamp on this card is one of those that comes as part of the Clarity club membership and is a sprig of pears and leaves.  It arrived at just the right time for the birthday of one of our friends.  They are involved and have been for years with the scouting movement locally, and the Black Pear is one of the badges used in the Worcestershire area.  It also appears on the badges of Worcester city, and the trees are grown in local traditional orchards.  The fruit itself is not truly black but at one stage is a deep mahogany.

Its importance to Worcestershire is due to Queen Elizabeth I, who saw a black pear tree with fruit on when she visited the area, and gave the emblem to Worcester for their coat of arms. 

The Worcester Black Pear was known as the "Warden Pear" and was first recorded in the 13th Century at Warden Abbey in Bedfordshire.

I used Clarity silk card and stamped the pear twig with Adirondack Pitch Black. I also used the naked tree stamp, also from Clarity to extend the twig into a branch.  When the ink was dry, I used the Quickie glue pen to cover the pear fruits themselves, let the glue dry off and applied gilding flakes (without breathing).  One that was cleaned off and dry, I filled in the tiny specks of white with a similar colour Promarker (I need more practice with the glue pen and the flakes).  The leaves and branches were also coloured with Promarkers.  The bottom corner border was done with another twiggy Clarity stamp, and  the same glue and gilding technique used to highlight that part too.   

I brayered the sky and covered over a couple of black marks with a flock of birds - very useful, they are.  I polished the finished card with a tissue, before mounting it on black card and copper coloured mirri card.  The background of the main card was following another of Barbara Gray's techniques.brayering the colour on to a sheet of Clarity silk paper, and then applying scrunched up wet cling film, and leaving it to dry.  That was also polished and then glued to a white card as a wrap.  I stamped the pears again randomly over the paper with flitter glue and fine glitter, before attaching the main image.

I was pleased to be able to do a card that could be personalised to the interests of the recipient.  That is what I do try to do as a norm, but this one was special to us all.  I did a similar card afterwards for the Clarity Challenge.  I don't often repeat cards but this one was not the same, just using some of the same stamps and techniques.  I really, really like this pear stamp, and I suspect it will appear a lot in the future.