Spring is in the air!

Hi there

Happy New Year! This is my first post of 2016 and when i made this card last week Spring seemed to be very much in the air due to the incredibly mild weather we were having at the time. Its amazing what a difference a week can make though - the temperatures we normally associate with this time of year have finally arrived and there's a very definite nip in the air now. But I still like this card and at the risk of blowing my own trumpet, I'm really pleased with how it turned out. 


The focal point of the card was made using the Floral Flourish Edge die from Tattered lace. I thought I'd try something different with this die and see what I could achieve. I hope you like the finished card as much as I do. Let me know what you think.  

To make the card I cut out and embossed the Floral Flourish Edge three times in white card and then I cut out and embossed just the flower elements - again, three times, but this time in yellow.

Picking out the foliage on the white die cuts I coloured these green to match the card stock I'd picked using my Spectrum Noir pens - I used JG1.

Next I turned my attention to the card base. I like making quite large cards so using an 8 inch card base I created three matting layers, one each in green, yellow and white. I decreased each one by just 5 mm so they were quite fine.

Now for the tricky part.  For the top layer (white) I embossed the diamond pattern (I used an embossing folder from Crafts-Too) and then cut out a 13.5cm circle in the centre. Laying the white layer on top of the yellow card, to ensure it was positioned correctly, I then cut out a 11.5cm circle from the centre of the yellow card. Repeating the process again I then cut out a 9.5cm circle from the centre of the green layer. 

These were layered up using double sided tape with a piece of acetate behind the bottom (green) layer. I wrapped around some sheer white ribbon and some thinner green ribbon on top.

After applying some Detail Glue to the back of the three white die cuts I arranged them around the edge of the yellow layer in a circle. I hope the picture shows you how. This meant that the die cuts overlapped, but that was good because it meant that I could add some dimension. Again I was able to create dimension by only partially glueing on the yellow flower elements, bending the unstuck parts for added height. 

I cut a 'Happy Birthday' sentiment out of the waste from the green and yellow card and layered them up, slightly staggered, to give a shadow effect. This was stuck onto the acetate.

Once I had stuck this on to my card base I was able to add Cosmic Shimmer Sparkle PVA Glue dots on to the die cut and randomly across the acetate and at all of the cross over points on the embossed diamonds. 

A double bow and embellishment was added to finish off the card.

Spring might not yet be here but this card cheers me up and reminds me that it's just around the corner!