Hoppity Hop Hop

Welcome to The Craft Squad blog hop!  If you hopped in from Stampin’ Inferno, then you are in the right place!  If you just wound up here on your own, then “Howdy”, and welcome to the Crafty Neighbor blog!  For the next few days, this blog will be participating in The Craft Squad blog hop – a little something we do once every month.  This month, our theme is “Hoppity Hop Hop”, and all the participating blogs will be posting projects around that theme.

I had a bit of paper left over from a scrapbook layout I did a while back, and I thought it would be perfect for some Easter cards. I found an egg image on my Close to My Heart Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge and cut out a few hearts.  I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do with them, but I thought I might do something where I used some different techniques.  So I stamped on some of the eggs, I put a few through some embossing folders using my Big Shot, and I even blinged a couple.  I wound up with three cards that are all very different from each other. 

For the first card, I knew that I wanted a bunny of some sort because of the title of our theme, so I found this cutie on the Cricut Create a Critter cartridge.  Rather than cut him in multiple layers, I actually only used two.  I used my Copic markers to color the under-layer so that the colors came through the opening of the top layer.  The grass is a Quickutz die, as is the dragonfly.  The egg was embossed using the Stampin’ Up Decorative Dots embossing folder.  I accented the dots by brushing on some Stampin’ Up Shimmer Paint in Frost White.

The second card I made used the same grass die cut, but I decided it needed some fancy eggs.  I stamped one egg with the floral spray from Stampin’ Up’s Bliss stamp set and then traced lightly over the image with a Gelly Roll glitter pen.  It doesn’t show up well in the picture, but the image has a nice glittery sheen.  I ran the white egg through the Big Shot with a chevron embossing folder and then used Stickles to accent the chevron stripes.  If you notice a little color-wash on it, it’s because I tried to do a light water-coloring technique on it, but it didn’t turn out as I’d planned.  The egg in the center is decorated with some little bling accents I found at Office Depot.

I find scrapbooking supplies in all kinds of crazy places, so I’m always on the lookout for something new.  These were perfect for this egg.  I put one of the larger pieces in the center of the egg, and then used two of the smaller clusters by letting the piece hang off the edge of the egg.  I then cut off the excess and used it on the opposite side of the egg.  “Happy Easter” was from a stamp set I’ve had hanging around for a while.  I punched it out using Stampin’ Up punches.

This last card was my biggest challenge.  I needed to make one more card and I knew I wanted to use the same scraps over again.  I already had several eggs left and I had cut the scalloped circle for the project from yesterday and then decided not to use it.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have any patterned paper left – I had used it all up!  All I could find were two tiny little strips.  But I was determined to have all three cards come from the same supplies, so after a lot of thought, I decided to cut the two strips into two pieces and use them as a border trim.  I used my Stampin’ Up Very Vintage Stampin’ Around Wheel and some white craft ink, which I then embossed with clear embossing powder.  The effect was this slightly opaque pattern that eliminated the need for patterned paper. 

The bunny also stumped me.  I knew I wanted a bunny peaking over the top of the eggs, but my bunny stamp was just a head and the ears stamp solid on it.  I wanted the bunny outline to be black, but the ears to be shaded pink.  I could do it with a marker directly on the stamp, but I wanted the inside of the ears to have a bit of the black outline, too.  So I stamped the image twice, once in black and once in pink.  I cut the inside of the ear out and glued it down.  Just enough of the black peaks through to give the look of the black outline that I was looking for.  I cut the rest of the head out, flipped it upside down, and used it for the bunny’s body. 

Well that’s it for my cards.  I hope you enjoyed my “Hoppity” projects!  If you like what you see, please subscribe to my blog by using the “Subscribe” buttons on the left and feel free to browse some of my older posts in the Archives and the Topics sections.  Your next stop is the beginning of our hop at Treasure Chest of Memories by Laura Wilkinson.  Be sure to check out all the blogs in our hop and let us know what you think!