Robin's Birdhouse: Dragonflies of spring

Friday, February 24, 2017

Dragonflies of spring

Hello and Happy Friday! I know it's only February, but the weather here in Michigan has been warmer than usual and that has me thinking of spring. The Altered Pages Artsociates are still celebrating greenery and that is the perfect color for spring!

Products Used - you can find most of them at Altered Pages:
Graphic 45 Artisan Style 6x6 paper pad
Library pocket
Tag
Dragonfly Dreams rubber stamp set
Double-sided adhesive & glue stick
Ink (pigment, if you plan to emboss - I used both dye and pigment)
Clear embossing powder
Dauber
Scissors, paper cutter & Scor Buddy
Fibers - a few different types of yarn for this tag

The Graphic 45 Artisan Style paper pad has three different pages of green designs and each one is two-sided. I used the paper as panels, strips and squares so that each element of my card blends seamlessly with the next.

I started by cutting 1" strips of each of the patterns. Some of the strips got cut into 1" squares.

I laid the squares out on the book pocket until I found a combination that I liked and then glued them down. It wasn't until the pocket was finished that I realized I forgot to ink the edges! Good thing I still had more squares. Here you can see the difference between the two. The tab at the top was trimmed off for a prettier card.

The edges of the card panels were inked to soften them. The size of the green panel was determined by placing the tag inside the pocket and then measuring to leave just an 1/8th of an inch over that size. The words "DRAGONFLY dreams" were stamped behind the tag so that there won't be an empty space if the tag is removed. Tags make wonderful bookmarks when they're flat so a book would be an awesome gift to go along with this card. These library pockets are awesome. You could easily convert this to a money or gift card holder.

For the tag, I glued down each of the dark pattern strips along the outside edges and then glued the light strip over the top and trimmed everything to fit. Inking the edges of the tag helps frame them and makes it seem more like a sold piece. When complete, just add some pretty yarn.

Using my own pigment ink, I stamped and embossed two dragonflies of each size on a separate piece of paper. This is the same paper I have used for my card base and it matches the book pocket.