Image Swap Card Exchange

I recently participated in a fun and challenging swap hosted by Faith at the Stamp-Shack, which is a terrific site for stampers who enjoy card making.

In this challenge, swappers submitted multiple copies of an image stamped on card stock to the swap hostess and she sent each participant an image from each of the other players to make a card -- any kind of card.

The completed cards were returned to the hostess who sorted them and sent each player the cards that were made from her image. Here are some of the cards I made for that swap. I also made a coordinated envelope for each card.

I originally planned a black, gray and brown palette for Captain Jack but when I painted his bandana, the mica paint had a greenish patina to it, and I picked up on that with the celadon colors of this patterned paper from Wild Asparagus (Me and my Big Ideas). The twine gives a rustic finish to the image.

I punched holes with my tiniest hand punch and used fine, stiff twine (Wal-Mart) to overcast the edges of the image panel, which I distressed.

I used two coordinating papers, also from the Wild Asparagus collection, for this card and the coordinating envelope.

After painting with watercolors, I cut the image out and matted it on ovals.

The dark rose petals on the scalloped border are a part of the print that just happened to be in the perfect spot.


The headband was embellished with Ruby Slipper Stickles and gold microbeads. Larger gold beads and jump rings made wonderful jewelry. I adhere them with Diamond Glaze.





This adorable House Mouse image was watercolored and then mounted on a striped lavender and kraft patterned paper. The background I chose has lavender flowers on a kraft background. I embellished with die cut corners and punched flowers.

The image provided for this card was the largest butterfly. which I painted with Winsor and Newton Iridescent Watercolor Medium. I kept the color theme to black and white with a tiny punch of navy in the punched butterflies. The larger punched butterflies were stamped and embossed in black on navy.




Here is the inside of the card and a stamped embellishment on the envelope.







After watercoloring, I added some gold ink to the robes, then matted the image. I used scraps of the paper from the card front and border to embellish an inside panel that was stamped with a holiday greeting.


This card started out as a happy accident and ended up being my personal favorite of the lot.

When I first saw the image, I was stumped. I decided to paint first and let my muse take it from there. I intended to paint the beach ball in primary colors but grabbed the wrong green (olive instead of grass green). Seeing my mistake, I searched through my patterned papers and found Mellow, a lovely Basic Grey collection in a small (6" by 6") pad.

The "solid" blue has clouds and shading and made a perfect mat for the image, which I cut out and mounted on it. The water was treated with irridescent medium and stickles for shimmer.

The sun was stamped, painted, and embellished with Stickles.

The red and green panels are from the same paper pad and coordinate perfectly with the floral background.

The tiny flowers and buttons came in a tiny bag of embellishments as a freebie with a stamp set I bought ages ago. Punched leaves and vines, brads for flower centers, and a tiny bit of twine finished it off. I hated to return it! Doesn't that pup look like he's having fun?