Belated Wishes

Good Morning!

I hope this post finds you all well ;)

I've had a little play around with my new Lawn Fawn 'Year Two' clear stamps.  I am still new to stamping & inking and getting the 'feel' of my inks and stamps but came up with this little A2 (US) size card!  The inks I used were Tim Holtz's Distress inks as they were in reach! I hadn't planned to make this card when I made it - postie had dropped the crafty goods off & it was a case of opening the stamps and thinking ..Ooooh, I have a belated card to make.....hence, stamps were out, inks reached for and away I went....hehe.... I had fun playing, I know there are bits of the presents not stamped enough but believe me, I am taking note of my errors lol  The main thing is, I had fun! If you didn't know already, these little stamp sets have their own matching dies! They are so handy to have.  As much as I enjoy fussy cutting, sometimes my hands do not, so having these dies is so much easier for me! 

I decided to to play around with my own background using the small present stamp - I randomly stamped away till I got the desired look I was after.  I then decided I needed to stamp something in between the presents and that's where they little heart came in (I can't remember where the heart stamp came from, sorry!).  So, once all the stamping and die cutting was done, I then coloured the little blue inked presents in, using  the 'Cool Aqua' promarker pen.  I decided to leave the yellow presents as they were.  I did then decide to go over all the presents with my Clear Wink of Stella brush, just to give them a subtle sparkle! The little tortoise & his hat were coloured in using my Promarker pens, along with the single present.  By now, I  had the idea that I would have some balloons drifting over the tortoise, carrying the little present - so, I found my balloon die (Frantic Stamper), die cut the balloons and string out and then coloured them with the same colours used for the tortoise itself. So, once everything coloured I then played around with positioning of the little fella and the balloons.  Now, having played around, I kept coming back to the same issue, I needed something resembling ground ...I don't possess the dies that cut out the ground slopes etc (watch this space ...lol) but what I did have was some Spellbinders curved borders Two, so I played around with them to try and get a curved border effect from my grass ground.  It kinda worked lol When I was happy with how it came out I then coloured the ground using the Pine Promarker pen. Having put everything together, I then needed a sentiment, so I stamped the HAPPY text and cut it out.  I wanted just the 'happy' on the front and for the inside, I stamped the 'belated birthday'.

So, there you have it!  I've had a few days to look at this card and as much as I like the colours used & all the stamps - I just wished I'd spent a bit more time playing with the positioning of the balloons and hanging present :/ BUT, as it's a learning process for me, I know, looking back I will see the error of my ways LOL

Anyway, here it is:

So, I hope you like!

I would like to enter this card into the following challenge(s):

Simon says stamp ~ wednesday challenge ~ Anything goes

That's it for now,

See you soon!

Mandy :)

Items used: Stamps & Dies: Lawn Fawn Photopolymer clear stamps ' Year Two' & coordinating dies. Tim Holtz mini Distress Inks, Mowed Lawn, Mustard Seed, Salty Ocean. Promarkers: Olive Green,Yellow, Pine, Azure, Cool Aqua. Balloon Die: Frantic Stamper die - Helium Balloons (set of 4 dies).  Curved borders: Spellbinders curved borders Two. Wink of Stella, clear shimmer.