2024 August Swaps

Swap card (above): "Tropical" is the theme for this month's swap card.  I decided to use Spellbinders Coastal Escape View die set from their Windows with a View collection.  These are such pretty dies with such a variety and were used to cut all the die cuts on the card front and the inside.  The white shell was a sticker from my stash, the sentiment was Hunkydory.  The background was from a wallpaper sample book.  I thought it gave the look of the inside of a ship's cabin looking out at the sea. I used Distress and Distress Oxide inks to color the die cuts and the background.  I also used a coordinating stencil called Background Scapes to try to create the look of waves in the water - though I must admit it DOES make better clouds than waves. :)

Inside:

It's a bit hard to tell from the picture, but the inside "portal" was cut from copper mirri.  The background was done the same as for the card front, and the coral, sea weed, and fish were from the same die cut set.  The inside sentiment was from one of my Crafter's Companion Compendium stamp sets - the page called Celebrate.

Materials Swap - Book related:

Here's the kit I created:

This was a challenging one for me!  It was supposed to be book related and it took me longer than I thought it should have to come up with a good idea for that.  Since characters from a book were an option, I decided to go with a nativity scene.  I sent a die cut nativity scene (Holy Night from Divinity Designs) and die cut greeting (Moonstone's A Christmas Miracle).  To that I added a card blank, white card stock, silver card stock, dark blue patterned paper, and a silver-edged white ribbon.

And here's what I made with it:

It's a bit hard to see in the picture because of reflected light off the silver.  I started by matting the blue with silver and gluing it to the card front so there was a bit of white around it.  Then I cut a hole in the center and glued the cut-out piece to the inside of the card.  I bordered the hole with silver and white frmaes, then cut the nativity piece apart, leaving the stable scene intact.  Next, I used a circle die to round the bottom to fit inside the hole.  I finished by adding the remaining figures as you see, a ribbon bow, and the sentiment (which says "A Christmas Miracle").

Inside:

I cut a silver circular frame that was larger than the hole so there would be no chance of seeing it from the outside.  I then used ink to cover the white between the blue circle and the silver frame.  After gluing the nativity scene in place, the only other thing was to add a strip of the blue at the bottom for a border.

Here's the kit my partner created:

It's a sheet from the HD Pop a Topper set called Ladies Choice and a few papers from her stash that coordinate with it. And here's what I made:

 

I had quite a challenge figuring out how I wanted to lay out this card.   I finally decided on the above with the sentiment on foam tape.

Inside:

As you can see, I went with more of the same for the inside.

Digi-Swap:

This card started with the three patterns and focal that I printed from a digital download.  I started by fussy cutting the bird focal and gluing it to a white mat.  I then added it to a blue dotted mat.  My background was the blue check - with a smaller yellow serving as a larger mat for the focal & sentiment.  I added a sneaky little kitty face & paws (Stampendous Pop-Up Kitties) - kitty on wobble spring, paws on foam tape.  The greeting is fuzzy alphabet stickers.

Inside:

As you can see, I used scraps to create a border on the inside.  The embellishment is from Sassy's LLC and says "A little birdy told me you weren't feeling well . . . so I ate it."