Mum's birthday card!

Well it's finally Saturday and we're over visiting Mum for a belated birthday lunch.  She really liked her gnome card so now I can share it with you as well.  I know I blogged some other gnome cards yesterday but Mum's was actually the very first card made with my stamps.

I was very inspired by a card I saw on a blog.  This one was made by Donna Mikasa.  I love her blog and all her gorgeous cards... definitely getting lots of ideas!

I knew I wanted to make something pretty similar to what Donna had made so I started by die cutting my watercolour paper with my new Lawn Fawn dies... love the subtle stitching around the edges:

Then I masked off the edges of the watercolour paper and inked the background using Distress Ink - Mermaid Lagoon, Squeezed Lemon and Mowed Lawn.  I also did some water splattered to give the background a bit more interest.

When I took off the masking tape I was stoked with how the background looked:

Next up was stamping some of the images from My Favorite Things gnome stamps.  I coloured them using Distress Markers and love how vibrant they turned out!

One thing I hadn't considered was that the dies for these stamps are solid so you can't actually SEE your stamped image when you lay the die down.  I've now found that it's best to die cut first and stamp second!  I held the dies in place using some masking tape.  You can see what I mean about the solid die shapes.  The clouds are from a Lawn Fawn set.

After die cutting all the elements I wanted I started working out where I wanted to place everything.  I've recently bought myself a MISTI stamping tool and I absolutely LOVE it!  It makes stamping so much easier and really accurate.  After working out where I wanted everything I went ahead and stamped the sentiment and it worked brilliantly... no more worrying about wrecking my cards!

Then I decided to add some grass along the base of the inked background.  I used Mowed Lawn Distress Ink and did a bit more water splattering.

Next I grabbed my Wink of Stella pen and added some sparkle to my clouds... so pretty!

Then I started layering all the elements on the card:

After popping the gnome, toadstool and snail on I realised something was missing!

She probably won't particularly like me advertising her age... but it fitted in the space perfectly!

Then I adhered my card front to the card base and stamped a sentiment inside... yes, I'm a cheeky daughter sometimes!

I've been waiting since Thursday morning to give Mum her card and I was really pleased with her reaction.  Here's my finished card:

I'm still loving these wee gnomes so I'm sure you'll see more of them on my blog!

Wishing you all a great weekend xx