Lil Inker's Birthday Craft Dash...

9 minutes 42 seconds later...

Today's card brings together two fabulous birthdays!!!  10 Minutes Craft Dash First Birthday Bash, and Lil Inkers 3rd Birthday Celebrations.  Check them out, there are some FABULOUS prizes & discounts available!!!

Basing my card on inspiration from Lil Inkers Third Birthday Challenge graphic, I love the sky and the pops of colour from the balloons floating in it.  I thought it would be cute to have the balloons getting carried away LOL! Started my card by doing all my die-cutting first, with the outline rectangle stitched mat, negative balloon circle and "hap_y" all die cut in the first run, then back through for a second pass with the "p" moved across to complete the "happy", then cut the Echo Park papers to create the orange stitched circle balloon and teal Lil Inker balloon strings in the next pass, and finally the red stitched circle balloon.  Next up I used a Martha's Craft glue pen to secure the balloon strings and balloons to the front panel, before positioning the panel over the Maggie Holmes Crate Paper sky and cutting to size. Inked up the Heidi Swapp birthday sentiment and lined up to stamp the base layer first, then reinked and lined up to stamp the top layer. Adhered the cloud paper to the white cardstock card base, then pop dotted and aligned the top layer - this was the trickiest part for me and the clock was ticking down big time!!!

10 Minute Tip

• Using a metal shim as a layer in your die cutting sandwich when using intricate dies - or any dies for that matter, means you can die cut in one pass with confidence - knowing that your die cuts will cut perfectly every time is a super time saver!

Hope you get a chance to join in the celebrations at the 

10 Minutes Craft Dash First Birthday Bash, and

Lil Inkers 3rd Birthday Celebrations too!!
Playing along with Seize the Birthday Anything Goes too!

This made me smile

and this too

Hello Lil' Sunshine...

First I have to say a HUGE Thank You to Laura at Lil' Inker Designs for re-sending my order when it looked like it was lost somewhere en-route from USA to Australia.  It turns out that my parcel ended up going via Frankfurt, Germany - I think it was on it's way to Austria, in a two month round the world trip - how I wish I could have been in that parcel!!!  Then one day later my replacement package arrived in record time, just over 1 week - and this package is now on it's way back to Laura with my sincerest gratitude & thanks for FANTASTIC customer service!

Luckily my parcel arrived in perfect time for the fab new Lil' Inker Designs Sunny Days Challenge Hop, to be inspired by this cool series of photos...

 

So my card is 100% Lil' Inker Designs die cuts - from the gorgeous sun, rainbow and vellum clouds (I LOVED how well these dies cut into the vellum), to the stitched polaroid frame and rectangle, paired with this gorgeous Lil' Inker Designs Hello sentiment, created using a combination of Fancy Pants Park Bench and Echo Park papers. The fancy button is from the Fancy Pants Park Bench Collection too.  If you hurry you can still join in the Lil' Inker Designs Sunny Days Challenge Hop, until 11:30pm Sunday June 2nd and be in the running to win some FAB Lil' Inker prizes!

Hope you are having a Sunny Day in your corner of the world!

Playing along with Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes Challenge, 

and with this FAB colour combo, joining in the fun at Inspired By too

Playing along with Catered Crops Mellow Yellow Challenge too, thanks Sian!!