Sami Stamps Release - Shamrock Girls!!

Happy Friday!!  Woohoo!!
Who's over winter?  Anyone?...I know I am!  While I'm not a fan of hot summers either, right now I am thoroughly over freezing my butt off!  Spring can come anytime now!

But I can tell it's getting closer because my projects have taken on a bit of a lighter feel to them.  And it all began with this weeks Sami Stamps release - Shamrock Girls!  I'm not sure why, but I love St. Patrick's Day...not for the drinking but just the fun that surrounds it.  I have a soft spot in my heart for the Irish and am diligently saving my pennies so we can make a trip to Ireland someday.  So of course I adored this fun release!

When Sami posted the images, there was one that I had to have..and I think Sami knew I would snag it as well :)

This image is Lucky Whiskers and I couldn't resist scooping him up and putting him on a card!  I had this vision of a fun chevron type background behind the image but I wasn't sure if I wanted it to be a full cutout background or like a stenciled background.  So I set out to look for some ideas/inspiration and settled on doing a full cutout.  I found this fun background in the Silhouette store and cut it out in green.

The paper behind it has been inked up in different shades of yellow and then splattered with the refill ink from one of the pads I used.  I wanted it to be a bit more splotchy, but I'm still happy with how it turned out.

Then I grabbed my sewing machine!  Man, I've been having fun with that lately!  I mean, yeah there were a few moments where I wanted to throw the thing out the window because it kept jamming on me while I was figuring out the settings...but now that I have it worked out, I'm having a blast sewing every card in sight!  So I zigzagged a stitch in gold around the edge.  Then layered my image onto a chalked scene with some sparkles in the sky.  Since I cut the image out, I used some twine to represent the string that the shamrock is attached to.  Then used that same twine in the button (which I colored orange to match the gems) and printed off my flagged sentiment!

I'd like to enter Lucky Whiskers card into the following challenges:
    Artistic Inspirations #81-Sparkles/Anything Goes
    The Corrosive Challenge #194-Animals
    Seize the Sketch #15
    Word Art Wednesday #122-Anything Goes

I love how simple this next image is.

Those shamrocks would be perfect with almost anything!  I had a different layout in mind for this card, but as I was putting it all together, this is kind of how the pieces fell and I really love it!  The image is Twisted Shamrocks and I've colored them in with my ShinHan markers and added some glitter pen and liquid pearls to the centers.

I printed off the sentiment, flagged the ends and then layered it on top of the image, lining it up with the stripe of glitter tape I put underneath the image panel.  The final touch was liquid pearls on the sentiment banner and in the corners to tie it all together.

I'd like to enter this Shamrock card into the following challenges:
    Card Mania #41-Use a Sentiment
    Pattie's Creations #87-Green for St. Patrick's Day
    Ruby's Rainbow #74-Monochromatic Green + 1

We're also starting a new challenge at Sami Stamps - Use Green!  Stop by, check out the rest of the design teams amazing projects and then join in the fun!!

Thanks for stopping by!  <3