Safari Smiles Birthday Swaps 🦁🎉

May 12, 2026

Safari Smiles Birthday Swaps 🦁🎉

I made these fun birthday swaps for a gathering with fellow demos and instantly fell in love with this adorable lion family. There’s just something about cute animals on cards that makes people smile a little bigger. Add some warm sunset colours, layered grasses, and patterned paper… and suddenly the lions are hosting their own tiny birthday party in the savanna 😂

I also loved mixing patterns on this one. The stripes and dots give the background extra movement without taking away from the focal image.

Background Layer

Create your card base using Basic White cardstock. Add two different patterned DSP strips to the front panel, one striped and one dotted, to create a fun layered backdrop. I kept everything in our new peaceful pines in color to let the lions stay centre stage.

Stamp & Colour

Stamp the lion family image and colour with Stampin’ Blends. I used warm browns, golden tones, and a soft peachy ground shadow underneath to give the image a cozy sunset feel all from our neutrals blends. I then went in under the Lions main with black and brown water colour pencils to add some of the fur dimention. cut the image.

Layered Details

build the little safari scene, Die cut and adhere
Ground - Crisp cantaloupe -1st then adhere the lion with dimensionals

rocks -Gray Garnet -1 behind 1 popped up in front with Dimensionals

grasses - Golden Glow -adhere them all around.

soft clouds - White -adhere them to the top

Sentiment

Stamp the “Happy Birthday” sentiment and layer it across the front of the card. Add the smaller “from all of us” sentiment near the bottom to tie the whole design together. (my Happy Birthday sentiment is from ready set go because im in love the font)

Final Thoughts

These swaps were so much fun to make for a crafty gathering with fellow demos. Cards like this remind me why I love swaps so much… everyone brings completely different styles, ideas, and creativity to the table. Plus, let’s be honest, cute critters always steal the show 🦁✨

And somewhere during this project I’m pretty sure my cats Oscar and O’Malley inspected everything thoroughly… mostly by sitting directly on top of it.

🐱 Happy Crafting! 🐱