Whimsy Stamps ~ Kicking off the St Paddy's Day Fun

Hey crafty friends, I've had a few quieter days after hurting my back badly last week. Thankfully, I'm doing better after a visit to my chiropractor and some gentle days and wonderful warm wheat packs! I have years of back issues, so my wheatie is a great comfort and the last few days I got to do some gentle crafting too, which has been fun. These cards I'm sharing today, I made before I hurt my back and they were a lot of fun to create. We'd had my inlaws here and I'd gone shopping to a local craft store with my mother-in-law. She's a quilter and a wonderful one at that! We have several heirloom quilts made by her which we love. So it was fun strolling around a really fabulous store that had a whole floor of gorgeous quilting fabrics during her visit. It inspired these creations too, as I wanted to use some of these fab papers from the St Patrick's Day Slimline Paper Pack and couldn't decide which to use, so I had the idea to do a 'quilted' card background. I made two actually!

I created the cool quilted background with a simple cross hatch design. I didn't follow a pattern, but we have enough gorgeous quilts from my mother-in-law around to pull a pattern together with paper strips. It was so fun today and really relaxing! Though I have zero confidence with a sewing machine, so paper quilting is my limit! 

I made two backgrounds of the same design but used two different fun sentiments which are part of the St Patrick's Day Got Beer Clear Stamp Set. The first I stamped in a solid colour, I used VersaFine Clair Rainforest Ink, the second one I used two inks to create an ombré finish to the sentiment. I kept the designs otherwise very clean and simple, because I love the sentiments and the paper and wanted those to be the focus and feature of these cards. 

Here are a couple of pics of the process to get the quilted look of this card base. I just winged it, I used a wide strip to create the foundation pieces for the design and then narrower strips for the next sections. I did one set in one direction and mirrored that on the other side of the design, the second section on each side, I turned the direction of the strips to run the other way. Here's a full shot of the completed panel (just resting on a kraft card base for overall effect).

Laying the design over the kraft card base, I realised it was a bit underwhelming, so I decided to add some gold touches to the edges of the card base. So I took that same kraft card base and gilded the edges. I did this two different ways. I had some Honey Bee Gold Ink, so I did one running the ink pad around the edges and then heat set it to set the ink. The second version, I used the ink Distress Ink Dabber to add embossing ink to the edge and then used Brutus Monroe Gilded, Gold Embossing Powder and heat set it. I then took the same elements and technique and added gold to the edges of both sentiment panels. I used two different shapes for the sentiment panels and love the different looks of the two. 

I hope you enjoyed my 'quilted' paper design and the CAS finish to these cards, I'd love to know your thoughts no this. You may recall me doing something 'similar' last year with hexagon shapes. I had a lot of fun with that and remembered doing it as I was pulling out my St Paddy's Day stash, so that definitely had a part in inspiring this make too. Thanks for popping in to visit today, I'll be back with another crafty adventure very soon. Hugs and happy creating, Wends xoxo

(I share thumbnails to the elements I design with in order to make your search for them easier, in case you like something I've used. I do use affiliate links where possible and occasionally am paid a small commission. I do not earn affiliate sales from my Whimsy links. This is just for tracking data. It helps the companies I design for to improve their marketing practice and track my contributions. I am deeply grateful if you use them for these reasons. I am proud to design for the companies I do and always feel happy to share where my inspiration and where my crafty stash comes from. I am occasionally gifted products to use, but I only design for companies whose products I absolutely love and buy for myself. My opinions are always my own.)

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