Hippo Mother's Day!

Today I'm sharing the card I made for my Mum for Mother's Day.  My Mum loves hippos and I can't resist a good punny sentiment, so I thought the hippo from Lawn Fawn's Year Four would be perfect.  However, my Mum said it took her a while to realise that 'Hippo' was supposed to sound like 'Happy'.  Oh well!  At least the card arrived on time, unlike the flowers I ordered :(

Anyway, onto the card making!  I started with the background, cutting a panel of Tim Holtz Watercolor Cardstock down to 4" by 5 1/4".  I smooshed three colours of Distress ink (cracked pistachio, peacock feathers and mermaid lagoon) onto my craft mat and spritzed it with water.  I then laid the cardstock into the wet ink and smooshed it until the card was completely covered in ink.  I dried it with my heat gun (I'm too impatient to let it air dry!) and mopped up any areas around the edges where the ink was pooling using some kitchen roll.  Once the cardstock was dry, I embossed it using the We R Memory Keepers Dotted Next Level embossing folder.  I love the effect these next level embossing folders give.

I stamped the hippo and bird from Lawn Fawn's Year Four stamp set, coloured the images with Promarkers and die cut them using the coordinating dies.  I die cut two circles from vellum.  On one circle I heat embossed the sentiment using Ranger Liquid Platinum embossing powder.  The 'Hippo' is from Year Four and the 'Mother's Day' is from Hero Arts Happy Stamp and Cut.  From the other vellum circle I used Lawn Fawn's Grassy Border die to cut some grass, which I then coloured using Distress Ink and an ink blending tool to give it a subtle green colour.  I adhered the vellum grass to the circle using Ranger Multi Medium Matte.  I made sure to only add the glue to the areas that would be hidden by the hippo.  I used the same glue to adhere the hippo and bird and to stick the circle to the background.  I used craft foam behind the background panel to add a bit of dimension.

Here's a close up of the cute hippo.

Hope you like it!

Floral Birthday Cards

Hi there! Today I am sharing a couple of birthday cards that have a similar design.

For both cards I stamped the background using various flower and leaf images from Hero Arts Let Love Grow and Avery Elle Laurels using Hero Arts Shadow inks.  I focused the images towards the bottom right of the card and left the top left corner white.  I filled in the gaps with berry and small star stamps from the Laurels stamp set.  I then trimmed both panels down to 4" by 5 1/4".

For the first card, I adhered the stamped panel directly to an A2-sized card (4 1/4" by 5 1/2") made from Spring Green cardstock from Papermill Direct. I stamped the sentiment from Hero Arts Happy Stamp and Cut onto some white cardstock using Versamark ink and heat embossed it using Ranger Liquid Platinum embossing powder. I adhered the sentiment diagonally across the card using foam tape.

For the second card, I adhered the stamped panel to an A2-sized white card blank using craft foam to give it some dimension. I stamped the same sentiment as the previous card onto white cardstock and adhered this to the stamped panel. I then adhered two thin strips of the Spring Green cardstock either side of the sentiment.

Hope you like them!