Black dragonfly die cuts embellished with shimmery paint as focal elements on these cards

A few cards for my stash using a die which I have never used before.  This dragonfly is from a Spell Binders set called Bugs.  I added a black scrap between the die and the background so I cut both pieces at a time - the hole and the dragonfly.  The extra layer helped to emboss the black layer with the detail on the die.  I left the black layer in the die and watercoloured it through the openings using shimmery watercolours.  They look great!!!!!!!!!  I used some background paper I found in my stash.  I think these pieces were backers on a calendar I got from my sister for Christmas one year.  They were way too nice to throw away!!   I trimmed the one piece down and the other into two which gave me three pieces.
For the first one I backed the dragonfly opening with gold gift wrap, stitched it to a brown layer which was embellished with scallop decorative scissors and a pattern tracing wheel then mounted this large element to a deep yellow card front which I had stamped on the right hand side with a stipple stamp in brown ink.  I added a dotted flight path using a fine tip permanent marker.  I added a small laser printed vellum greeting inserting the one end into the dragonfly opening and attaching it with a tiny piece of double sided tape.  I added just a tiny bit of glue stick behind the writing to get it to lay down nicely.  I added a small strip of double sided tape to the body of the black dragonfly and adhered it in the opening on my card.  The wings and body are free so you can see the gold through the dragonfly opening.  The second one was created very similarly.  I used a large piece of gold giftwrap for the background which I border punched with a scallop punch.  I added two blue strips to my main focal element which allows the gold to show through the dragonfly opening.  The third one used a large piece of background to which I added faux stitching and the other elements were created in the same fashion as my first card.
There are a few more critters in this set and I look forward to using them in a similar way.  I have three dragonflies left over from these card which I will paint and use as embellishments on future cards!!

Therese