Whimsy Stamps ~ St Patrick's Day Fun

Happy St Patrick's Day friends! I usually start creating for St Patrick's Day a little earlier but life has been crazy lately and I've only just pulled out my stash, but I've made two sweet cards to share with you today, which was so fun!

I've used the Shamrock Swirl Stamp Set from Whimsy Stamps to create this ombré stamped background. I love the pretty greens of this multicoloured ink pad from Tsukineko. I used the Caribbean Sea ink pad from their Kaleidacolor range to ink up the shamrocks and randomly stamped them over the base panel. 

I trimmed the panel to be a little smaller than an A2 card base then I used one of the darker ink colours in the pad to run around the edge of the panel to finish the edges and mounted the panel onto a mat of rainforest cardstock from Simon Says Stamp. Their rainforest cardstock is such a lovely blue green shade and has a slight ribbed texture on the top side. It's currently one of my favourite cardstock colours. 

I had an older embellishment set that Whimsy stocked back in the day from Buttons Galore. But it was a very bright and shiny finish on the shamrock. I wanted to make it a little more muted, so pulled out my alcohol inks and used three different ones to take the brightness down from the shamrock and give it a more distressed look. I really like the finishing result and used Lettuce, Meadow and Bottle alcohol inks to alter the look of the shamrock.

I wrapped the panel with some May Arts Ivory Twine before adding the image panel to the coloured cardstock mat with 1mm foam for a bit of depth and dimension. The twine was wrapped around both the image panel and the mat for added interest. I added another layer of plain cardstock cut in two and trimmed it to fit either side of the twine so I could add the layers onto the card base without the twine creating a bump in the upper layers. 

I used a lovely Antique ATC Frames Die Set to cut an oval frame as a mat for the lovely shaped label I stamped the sentiment on. I used the blue green Spruce VersaFine Clair Ink to stamp the sentiment because it has a blue green hue to it and matched so well with the gorgeous rainforest cardstock. I added the layers with 2mm foam tape for a bit of extra depth and dimension. 

I made another St Patrick's Day card while I had my St Paddy's Day stash out and think it's super cute! I used one of Whimsy's Quick Card Front sets for this card. I think the leprechaun is super cute and makes for a fun thinking of you card, especially if you've a friend who loves green as much as I do. 

I used a different VersaFine Clair green ink to stamp the sentiment on this card. The greens in the Quick Card Front panel are a brighter hue and more of an emerald green shade, which made me think of some lovely Simon Says Stamp cardstock I had called Emerald. I think it's a great match. I distressed the edges of the cardstock before adhering it to the top folding card base for a bit more interest to this lovely but otherwise quite CAS card design. 

I trimmed the image panel with a Zig Zag Stitched Rectangle Die to give the panel a little more interest and to give the edges a nice trim and finish with just enough of the green mat showing to frame the design nicely.

How about this cutie, that smile just gets me. I can't help smiling when I see that cheeky face. I loved that there was plenty of white space on this panel, which left me a lovely open area to stamp the sentiment. I used the Shamrock Swirls Stamp Set from Whimsy to add this sweet sentiment and I felt this card didn't need anything else, so didn't add any bling. 

I took a pic to show the difference between the two green inks I used for these cards as I thought it was interesting to compare the hues of the greens. Thought I'd share it for anyone else who was keen to see too. 

Whimsy has had two fabulous releases during March and the second one just went live. This has some beautiful imagery for Easter. There are two stunning Quick Card Front sets in this latest release and some adorable Easter sets. There's a stencil set that works with Whimsy's fabulous Terrific Tickets line, a new addition to Whimsy's Quick Strips Die Sets, which make for lovely sentiment frame sets. There's another cute dragon stamp set in this release and a die set full of fabulous bunny profiles. So many elements going on my wish list now! Thanks for visiting my blog today, I hope you enjoyed seeing my creative adventures and I'll be back with another one really soon. Hugs, 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 so appreciate if you use these when shopping. They cost you no extra whatsoever. 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.)

Challenge Entries:

Crafty Catz: #709 ~ Anything Goes

Mix It Up Challenge: #82 ~ Optional Die

Love to Craft Challenge: #91 ~ Anything Goes

Crafty Gals Corner: #275 ATG + Make It Green

Simon Says IG Challenge: Monochromatic Magic

Craft Rocket Challenge: #134 ~ No Designer Paper

Aud Sentiments Challenge: #335 ~ St Patrick's Day + Sentiment