ATCs & Inchies for the March group swap

 The theme this month for the group swap is flowers, so I went with the traditional springtime
daffodils for my ATCs and springtime inchies to match.

 

 For the inchies I used a mini stamp by Inkadinkado.  An adorable set of stamps, comprising of  16 inch square stamps, 6 mini stamps and a 2 inch square stamp.  This set is  all bird themed. They may be small stamp beautifully.

 I stamped them with a versafine ink pad in toffee and used a little glossy accent on the eggs. I used an inch stitched die for the base onto some chocolate centura pearl cardstock, adding a little hessian for texture to the cards.

For the ATCs I used Tim Holtz distress oxides inks in lucky clover & twisted citron to make the background

For my flowers, I used The Dreamees flower shower fuschia stamp set to make my daffodils. There is a tutorial on how I made these flowers in a previous post.  I stamped these onto some vibrant yellow card I had with the same toffee versafine ink.

These flowers have been cut out by hand and assembled. They are not a hard flower to make and definitely worth the effort to make them I think.

I used a strong tacky pva based glue like cosmic shimmer to adhere them to the card.

I finished the cards of with the little criss-cross stamp from the same flower shower stamp set.

Happy Crafting

Springtime Birthday Card

My DT card for the March Blog Challenge  over on  Daisy Chains   is themed  " Springtime "
A birthday card with handmade daffodils.

For my springtime card I used:-

• Dreamees Flower Showers Stamp Set
• Tattered Lace Pretty Pearls circle die
• Crealies square stitched die
• Rectangle stitched die
• Versafine Toffee ink pad
• Dreamees pearls
• yellow stamens
• Lemon spotty ribbon
• yellow cardstock to stamp on
• Dreamees backing paper
• mini peg & wooden ladybird
• cream 6 x  6 scalloped card 

There were a few things in the picture that I chose not to use in the end, one being the swirl die as I had originally intended to use acetate swirls to attach some butterflies but decided the card didn't need anything else added to it once assembled. I also chose the yellow ribbon over the mint gingham.

I have in the past made fuchsia flowers from this stamp set but wanted to show you how versatile this stamp set is and how you can make lovely dimensional daffodils out of them also.

First the flowers. I normally estimate how many flowers I think I will need and then make a few extra as there's nothing worse than assembling your card only to discover that you have not made enough. In this case, I knew that I would only need 5.

I stamped 10 of larger plain flowers to form the outer blooms and 5 of the medium sized defined flower stamps to form the trumpet of the daffodil.  You will also need 2 double ended stamens per flower.  Make a hole in the centre of the smaller flower stamp and one of the larger outer flower shapes for each flower.

Using a ball tool and a foam mat, I shaped the outer flower shapes so that one curled in and the other slightly out. For the smallest flower shape forming the trumpet, curl the flower inwards and then add a little tacky pva based glue (which dries clear - I use cosmic shimmer as it works for everything for me when it comes to sticking) to the edge of one of the petals and slightly overlap, holding it in place until you feel that it has stuck. 

 Do this for each petal working around the flower.  I tend to glue 3 together and then glue the last 2 together. The reason I do this as it gives the trumpet part of the flower a more natural shape.

Fold the stamens in half, twist and thread through the flower shapes.  Once I got this far, I used my hot glue gun. Coil the surplus stamen around and add a little glue to the base of the larger flower shape to keep the stamen in place before adding a little a little more glue to place the last flower shape in place ( hiding any scruffy ends).

Shape your flowers a little once they are all stuck down.

This flower was stamped with Toffee versafine ink and the yellow card was the perfect shade of yellow for the daffodils. I love making these dimensional blooms. All stamped and cut by hand.

Using some green card, I cut out some leaf shapes to create the foliage.

It just a case of planning how you want your card to look and adding all those elements to your card.

I used the stamped sentiment from the Dreamees Flower Shower stamp set and coordinated the backing card.  Adding the matching ladybug and pearls.

A springtime birthday card 

Daisy Chain Challenge

Entered into the following blog challenges:-

Crafty Cards - floral delight

Pammies inky pinkies - ATG

Happy Crafting