Hopping around Mother’s Day

It’s May 1st, and it’s time for another blog hop! This month’s theme is  Mother’s Day! There are so many great ideas hoppin’ around blogs this time of year that I thought I’d do something a little different. I took part in my group’s monthly “card guts” challenge, which I always try to do. Here’s how it works: my Stampin’ UP upline gives each of us who sign up a card base along with some cardstock scraps and has each of us make a card. The one rule is that we must use all of the pieces she sends us in some way. We are free to add to the collection if we choose, things like embellishments or ribbons or even additional cardstock. Call it an imaginative creative challenge, but it really gets me thinking outside the box every single month, and I absolutely love it! Since I knew the blog hop theme was Mother’s Day, and I still hadn’t been able to complete my challenge (yep, it was already April 29th, and the pieces were STILL sitting on my craft table in the envelope screaming at me), there was no better time than the present to complete two tasks with one challenge. So open the envelope I did…and squealed with delight! Inside the envelope I found a mini note card, a piece of Whisper White cardstock, a piece of starburst punched vellum, a 1 1/4″ punched DSP, a strip of black cardstock, a strip of DSP and a piece of DSP 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 ” (Pick A Pattern Designer Series Paper: Dinosaur Print/Yellow Dotted, Camera Print, and Green Weave Print). When I saw the dots, I thought of a Cheetah with reversed spots…I know, it’s silly, but it worked! I used the vines from the Petal Pair Embossing Folders to create “grass” on the Whisper White cardstock piece and then sponged it with Old Olive ink. I used the Fox Builder punch and the DSP to create my “cheetah”, glued it to an extra piece of black cardstock and cut it out. Then, I glued everything together. I also used Whisper White Pigment ink to stamp Hello on the black strip, using Sunshine Sayings stamp set. Here’s the finished card:

Here are a couple other projects I’ve been working on this past week. You can always tell what mood I’m in by the color combinations I use. The theme for my birthday card swap seems to have narrowed down to black as the major color. Despite that, the cards turned out beautifully. Here you see how black can show off any color and just make it “pop”!

I hope you’ve enjoyed your visit to my blog today, and have gotten some cute, useful tips for creating your cards this month. Please visit my store to purchase any of the items used for making the projects listed above. For some more useful tips, as well as other projects that are quite amazing, follow the links below (or click the next button below) to get to the next blog, which Diana Gibbs’ page. Should you get lost along the way, just click your back button until you get back here, and use the links below to see each blog that’s in the hop.

Barb    http://www.beelinestamping.com  (next up)

Kathya   http://www.stampwithkathya.com

Connie   http://www.texasschoolmarm.com

Ellie   http://www.elstamper.blogspot.com

Mary   http://www.doggandponyshow.blogspot.com

Trisha  http://www.creativelystamping.blog (you are here)