Passion for Papercraft: Ellibelle’s Garden Party #16

Thursday, 11 June 2026

Ellibelle’s Garden Party #16 - Guest DT

Hi everyone, I was delighted when my bloggy friend Ellie picked my May calendar page as a top pick for her Ellibelle’s Garden Party challenge, and asked me to be a guest designer this month. Of course I said yes!

The challenge is always

*** Anything In or From a Garden ***

Plenty of choices there, so there’s really no excuse not to join in! Please do visit Ellie’s blog to see more fabulous inspiration, and to link up your entries here.

Here’s my card for the challenge. I decided to go with a dragonfly, and my choice of this particular image was heavily influenced by the fact that I thought it went well with my new grungy frame dies, which I was absolutely desperate to play with!

I cut the grungy frame (AALL & Create Film Drip) - outer frame from black cardstock and inner panel from white stamping card. I then created a smooshed background on the white panel using Distress Oxide inks. I stamped and heat embossed the focal image, then stamped and heat embossed again onto a separate snippet of card. I coloured the dragonfly wings with metallic watercolour paints to give an iridescent sheen then fussy cut out. I added some faint deep blue stencilling around the edges of the image, then attached the painted dragonfly on top of the original image. I added a Tim Holtz sticker sentiment then attached the finished panel to the black frame and a 6” x 4” card blank (one of the few I had as I don’t normally make cards this size!) I finished off with some faux white spatters.

The background actually has a bit more colour than the photos suggest, but it is very dark here today so not the best for photography. Here’s an angled picture to show the iridescent sheen on the dragonfly wings.

I used several card snippets on this project, and unusually for me I even remembered to take a photo of them!

Stamps: Visible Image Dragonfly Dreams;

Media: Tim Holtz Distress Oxide inks (Cracked Pistachio, Blueprint Sketch); Versafine Clair (Nocturne, Twilight); Cosmic Shimmer watercolour paints (Jade Mint, Sapphire Sparkle); Luminarte watercolour paints (Bolivian Blue); Posca pen (white);

Tools: AALL & Create Film Drip dies; Visible Image stencil - Off the Grid;

Other: Tim Holtz Ideaology ‘Small Talk’ word stickers.

Challenges I would like to enter:

Colourful Options (June) - Tiffany Blue

(Aqua, teal, turquoise, blue/green)