Birthday Border Made From Snowflakes

I recently bought the very pretty Kate snowflake die from Simon Says Stamp (thanks again, Linda, for bringing over my order :) ) but didn't want to wait until I was making Christmas cards to use it.



Die (Simon Says Stamp) - Kate Snowflake
Stamp set (Hero Arts) - It's Your Day

I also wanted to try the inlaid die cut technique I've seen a lot recently. As I have accumulated so many small scraps over the years, I thought it would be a good opportunity to use up some of these too. I didn't cut out a full snowflake each time (or I'd have ended up with loads more scraps to add to my pile!), I just put small pieces of card on the centre of the die before running it through my Big Shot.



As you can see I just used three colours when I was die cutting and inlaid a mix of blue and green card on the centre line.



I had also intended doing the same on the two other lines but changed the plan as I went along as I think I'd be still here next week messing with the fiddly little pieces! To finish I added the Hero Arts sentiment and some star gems.

I'm submitting this card into Simon Says Stamp Work It Wednesday Challenge and Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes Challenge.

ATC and ATC Background Swap with Marilyn - Part 2

In a recent post I showed some ATCs and ATC backgrounds that I had made for a swap with the lovely and very talented Marilyn. Well today I'm excited to show you the amazing ATCs, ATC backgrounds and card that I was so lucky to have received from Marilyn. I have heard people use the expression jaw dropping when they see something fantastic. Well I can tell you that my jaw did literally drop when I looked at what Marilyn had created for our swap.

First up is the wonderful set of butterfly ATCs that Marilyn made.

Unfortunately my photo doesn't do them full justice as they are even more gorgeous in real life.

I have to say when I saw the wonderful ATC backgrounds that Marilyn had sent me, I really didn't want to do anymore to them as I thought they were perfect ATCs are they were. Anyway I thought I'd just add little bits to them as I didn't want to mess them up with whatever I decided to do.

Isn't this first background that Marilyn made so pretty and dreamy looking?

When I saw the sweet little Purple Onion bunny that Marilyn had also sent along with lots of other lovely goodies (thanks again, Marilyn), I thought it would be perfect to go on the background. I just lightly coloured the bunny and added a white fluffy pom pom tail which I coloured pink with a ProMarker.



Here's the other fab background Marilyn sent me.

The black strips reminded me of a piano so I first thought of adding white strips but they covered too much of the lovely background Marilyn had created so I just went with adding a stamped Hero Arts maple leaf.



I applied mustard seed distress ink to cream card and stamped the image using the same ink. After cutting out the leaf and applying some spiced marmalade distress ink, I stamped a portion of a Tim Holtz sentiment (I can't find the packaging so I'm not sure of the name of the set). To finish I added a bow using gold sparkly thread.

So this was the swap that Marilyn and I did but I couldn't end without showing the incredible card that Marilyn also sent me.

Not only is it absolutely adorable but Marilyn's colouring is just amazing! Marilyn, thanks a million again for swapping with me, I had so much fun and will treasure your masterpieces:)

ATC Trade With Marilyn

Recently over in the Hero Arts Flick group I came across some fabulous ATCs that Marilyn had up for trade. Needless to say I jumped at the chance to add these beauties to my ATC collection and was delighted when Marilyn said she'd trade with me. Marilyn, a great big thanks yet again for swapping with me:) For a little bit of extra fun we decided to make an ATC background for the other person to complete. Apologies in advance for the photo heavy post, but I forget to photograph the ATCs and backgrounds in groups before I sent them to Marilyn! I haven't made ATCs in quite a while but now after making these ones I'm itching to make more!

For my first ATC I used a flower set I love from Penny Black.



Stamps - Party Petals (Penny Black) & Woodland Wreaths (WPlus9)

I made a background with glossy card and alcohol inks and then embossed flowers and leaves from the Penny Black set. After applying distress inks I layered the flower and added lots of diamond stickles and a gem to finish.

One of my newer stamps which I hadn't used before is the Large Petal Background from Hero Arts. For its first outing I decided to emboss it and colour a portion of it with ProMarkers.

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Stamp (Hero Arts) - Large Petal Background

I must have been in a sparkly humour that day because I ended up adding diamond stickles to lots of different areas on the ATC. It's nice and shimmery in real life but hard to capture in a photo! I'm submitting this ATC into a2z Scrapbooking How Does Your Garden Grow linky party.

If you've seen my last two posts you'll know that a certain funny moose has become a firm favourite of mine so of course I had to include him on one of my ATCs!



Stamps (Hero Arts) - Missing You & Sew Artsy

I used a couple of fabrics for the background and added lots of machine stitching. The moose was coloured with ProMarkers and I added some dots with a white gel pen and glossy accents to the eyes. Stitching is the theme for Virginia's View Challenge #3 so I'm submitting this ATC into Virginia's fun challenge.

I'm submitting the two floral ATCs into Simon Says Spring Flower Challenge.

Next up are the backgrounds. We were only going to swap one background, but I made three and couldn't decide which one to send to Marilyn, so ended up sending the three of them. They were made by applying distress inks to white card and stamping with water instead of ink.



Stamp (Hero Arts) - Watch Gears



Stamp (Hero Arts) - Tiny Star Background



Stamp (Hero Arts) - Time to Stamp


I'm really looking forward to receiving Marilyn's ATCs and her mystery ATC background which I know will be great fun to play with! It looks like we're in for a bit of a soggy day here today but I suppose that's always a good excuse for doing a bit of stamping;) I hope you have a fun and inky weekend!