Happy Easter, Everybunny

Even if you have LOTS of patterned paper... (and I do!) ...sometimes you still don't have exactly what you want for a particular card. In this case, I wanted a text paper that said "Happy Easter" so I typed it myself! It's the perfect home for my Eyelet Outlet Rabbit Brads, whom I've given a little landscape to inhabit, by adding a Sun and Cloud Brad and a Mini Butterfly, as well as some punched grass and an oversized Hero Arts diecut tulip to frame up the whole thing.

This week I wish you a Happy Passover or Happy Easter, if you are celebrating; or just an extra nice second week of Spring! 

Hello, EveryBUNNY

The new challenge at Shopping Our Stash is called, "Here Comes Peter Cottontail" and if you guessed we'd like to see Easter cards, you're 1/3 correct... we'll also take Passover greetings; OR anything with a bunny on it. So there are plenty of ways to go. I'm representing Team Bunny!

I've been longing to make some big collages, but there just isn't enough time in a day; so I decided to settle for making a collage card. This sweet bunny came from a very tattered, garage-sale copy of a Little Golden Book. He's inhabiting a background made from torn vintage paper, beautiful trading stamps that Stephanie found at a thrift store, and not very much in the way of official papercrafting product, I'm afraid; except for several older, out of print Eyelet Outlet Washi styles, and a bit of Shabby Shutters Distress Oxide ink around the edges. I used my ancient We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper though, and quite a bit of Scotch Create Gluestick... does that count?  I had so much fun making my bunny card that I didn't want to stop collaging, so I made a few more cards:

I found this canary on a swing in an ancient, falling-apart book about pets while I was looking for bunnies, and I couldn't resist him. He was kind of small for an A6 card, so I filled in with a rose illustration from the same book. 

But then I found ANOTHER rose illustration... and a couple of really nice butterflies; also I had leftover torn bits of sheet music, foreign text and dictionary paper that were too small to keep, but too big to throw away, so I thought I might as well glue them onto a background. Collage-making often snowballs in this manner, I find, lol. 

Hop (like a bunny!) over to SOS and see what the rest of the crew have created, then start planning what you'll link up with us this fortnight!

What's Slim and Retro and Fab All Over?

It's Dare 2B Artzy's Slim Retro Background, of course; just one of many fine Dare 2B Artzy Die Sets that can be found at The Ink Pad and it's on TIP Blog today:

Holiday Cards to Die For!

We're embracing the joys of diecutting this fortnight at Jingle Belles, so break out your nested label shapes, your stamp-and-die combos, your beautiful background dies or all of the above! For those who have not embraced the format, we'll also accept cards that use old school paper punches as well as electronic systems like Cricut, Silhouette, etc, so there's no excuse not to join the fun!

I absolutely love this Hero Arts Holly Confetti Cover Die, so it's a bit of a mystery why I don't use it more? That's what I love about card challenges... it spurs me on to use items I've been neglecting. I made a funky smooshed background using Lime, Pthalo Green and Turquoise ColorBurst, and layered the diecut panel over some ancient dark green velvet paper. I made a flower and snowflake stack using pre-packaged diecut snowflakes as well as some Tim Holtz Tattered Snowflakes, sandwiched between layers of fabric flowers. The brad at the center is so old I'm not sure where it's from, but it actually has tiny holly leaves so I could not resist!

Hop over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's beautiful card and start planning what you will link up!

Bluebirds of Happiness

Bluebirds might be my absolute favorite of the backyard birds you see in New Jersey (or possibly tied with hummingbirds) and so despite the fact that they are two of the smallest of the eighteen (18!) stamps in LDRS' Country House Stamp Set, they were one of the first things I noticed; and I knew I wanted to feature them prominently in my card. Hop over to The Ink Pad blog for more details, including my trick for getting line free color on large images like, say, a big TREE! :)

I Like You a Latte

I never get tired of making coffee cards, especially when I can use my Eyelet Outlet Coffee Brads, Heart Brads, Sequins and Paper Flowers! 

This card is extra special because I used a STAMPlorations set called A Cuppa Love* designed by my amazing friend Becca... aka the Damsel of Distressed Cards... and an ARTplorations stencil called Dots 'n Beans; both of which I was lucky enough to win in last fall's Coffee Loving Cardmakers Blog Hop. So it seemed only fitting to use them in the Spring/Summer Hop, which is taking place right now!

I tried literally all of my brown and tan Oxide colors with the Dots 'n Beans stencil, and every single one looked awesome. But I wanted a slightly lighter, brighter, Spring vibe, and eventually I had a brainwave to try Spun Sugar. Weirdly enough, that was The One, lol! I stamped the sentiment in (appropriately enough) Ground Espresso, colored the mug with Tombows, cut it out and added a Heart Brad. I was happy with my cluster of mug, Paper Flower (with Coffee Bean Brad center!) and sentiment, but somehow it needed just one more thing. I'm not saying the answer to, "What does this card need?" is *ALWAYS* Eyelet Outlet Sequins, but that does turn out to be true a fair amount of the time, and they did the trick here!

Be sure to visit the Coffee Loving Cardmakers Hop to see all the amazing cards, then start planning what you will make to get a shot at all those awesome prizes!!! ♥

*Becca's A Cuppa Love stamp set is so awesome that it has sold out at STAMPlorations. 

Luckily she has a whole line called Big Grins, and I predict you will love them as much as I do! ♥   

"Smooshing" a Rainbow

Probably your first question is, "What in the world is SMOOSHING?" and I'll get to that in a minute, but first let me mention that today's cards were inspired by and made using Dare 2B Artzy'x Slimline Curve Borders Die Set and the Mega Box of Karin Markers, both of which can be found at The Ink Pad and will be of considerable advantage to your crafting arsenal! There's a little photo tutorial and a second card made using these same ingredients, both can be found on The Ink Pad Blog, so I hope you'll hop over to see them.