Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

I love St. Patrick's day!  Not only is it a day where everyone wears green (my favourite colour)  but it seems to put a smile on everyone's face, Irish or not!

I wasn't going to make a St. Patrick's day card this year, partly because I only have one stamp (the little shamrock) and I was stumped as to what I could do with it thats different than what I've done before.  You'd think I'd just get a new stamp but I am a procrastinator and without many craft stores in my area there isn't enough time to get one before the day, so my little shamrock is what I have to work with.

Then yesterday I was visiting Desert Diva's blog and scrolling through her free digital sentiments (which are awesome by the way) and I came across this post.  This reminded me of another card I saw in a magazine a long time ago (if I could remember where I would link it but I don't, sorry!) and I immediately knew what I wanted to do.

 In honour of the snow storm we get every year around St. Patrick's Day (this year was no different)  I decided to take pictures outside:

I haven't used my spray mists in a while so I chose some Sand cardstock from Stampin' Up! and sprayed it with various shades of green and gold.  I find that while its neutral, the Sand colour kind of has a green cast to it, so I thought it would work well with the green sprays.

Once dry I die cut the circles with nestabilities dies, then used the next size up to cut the white pieces layered underneath.  I could probably just have used one piece of white that was just cut smaller than the front so that the edges didn't show at the sides, but I didn't think of that until later.

I stamped the smaller white circle with the shamrock and coloured it, then hand-wrote the sentiment on the larger circle.  Once I figured out where the holes would be when the card front was attached, I adhered the white circles to the card base, which was also in the Sand colour.  I added bakers twine to the card front and attached it to the card base with foam tape to give dimension.  I made two versions because I couldn't decide if I wanted it lengthwise or widthwise.  I like it both ways!

I hand wrote the sentiment inside as well, and added a few more shamrocks.

These cards were sooo quick and easy and I love the result!  I have ideas to do something similar for different types of cards  so stay tuned to find out what happens!  :)

I've decided to enter these cards in the following challenges:

1. Catered Crop - Ravenous for Ribbon Quickfire - Twine counts, I swear!!
2. Simon Says Stamp and Show - Anything Goes
3. Pile it On - St. Patrick's Day and/or shades of green
4. Ladybug Crafts Ink - Anything Goes
5. Simon Says Stamp Challenge - Simon Says... a Bit O'Green
6. Daring Cardmakers -  Lucky Green

Here are the supplies I used:

Cardstock:  Stampin' Up!  Sand, Whisper White

Stamp Set:   Stampin' Up! Year Round Fun II

Ink:  Memories Black.  Smooch Spritz Gold Glow, Emerald Sparkle.  Shimmer Paints Spritz 4 Leaf Clover, Goldie lox, Heavy Metal.

Markers:  Bic Mark It! Key Lime, Forest Green

Twine:  We R Memory Keepers Sew Easy Fancy Floss Baker's Twine Secondary - Wintergreen.

Adhesive:  Tombow Mono Adhesive Runner permanent, Scotch Tape, foam squares.