Happy Easter!

This gigantic chocolate Easter egg on this Easter card is really making me hungry! I think the Easter bunny even looks a little surprised at the size of the Easter egg! The egg is the oval I cut out of THIS Easter card the other day! I knew I wanted to use it in another way on another card and here it is. Of course I used the Ovals Collection Framelits Dies. It was already embossed with the Fancy Fan Embossing Folder. I just decorated it with a little bit of Daffodil Delight 1/4″ Stitched Grosgrain Ribbon and a few punched out flowers accented with Rhinestone Jewels. The strip of grass is cut with the Fringe Scissors in the Occasions Catalog.  They are just fun!

You can make the punch art Easter bunny with whatever punches you like. Just play with it and make something! Use some circle punches or ovals and see what you come up with.

The greeting on this card is from the Four You stamp set and I stamped the “Thinking of You” on the inside.

Don’t forget about the Stampin’ Up! Weekly Deals available until Monday night!

Happy Easter!

I admit I was late ordering this Blessed Easter stamp, but it is so beautiful I eventually had to have it. It is just a single stamp so not expensive and can be used without the Easter greeting for many occasions!  Just think of what all you could use these tulips for – birthdays, Mother’s Day, sympathy, wedding, anything!

I used the Oval Collection Framelits Dies to cut the oval shape in the front of the card.  First I did adhere a piece of Retro Fresh Designer Series Paper on the front of the Whisper White card base and THEN cut out the oval. (Make sure you open the card first before running it through the Big Shot so you don’t cut out the back also!). I just loved the color of the paper, especially for Easter.

To get the flowers placed properly on the inside of the card, I could have used a Stamp-a-Ma-Jig but I just took the oval that had been die-cut, put it back in the oval space and lifted up the front o of the card so the oval shape stayed in place on the inside of the card.  I lightly put some pencil marks where the edge of the oval was so I could place my stamp within that oval. It worked great! I could have put an acetate window sheet in that opening in the front or a piece of vellum, but I decided to just keep it simple.

I stamped the flowers with Black Stazon ink so I could watercolor with my Aqua Painter and ink refills. First I colored mostly in the center of the tulips with So Saffron, since that is a coordinating color with the Retro Fresh paper and then added the Tangerine Tango as highlights (also a coordinating color). Don’t be afraid of watercoloring.  The beauty of it is that it doesn’t have to be perfect!  In fact, in lots of cases, you do NOT want to stay right inside the lines when you are watercoloring! So little slips here and there really only enhance your art!! For the leaves, I used Gumball Green with a little bit of So Saffron also added to the leaves  An artist friend years ago always said every green should have a little yellow in it. And for a little pizzazz, I added some Dazzling Diamonds Glitter with the 2-Way Glue Pen. (See my Facebook page today for a good use for the 2-Way Glue Pen – and “Like” me while you are there!)

For the front of the card, I wanted to do “something” else, but finally saw that a little Whisper White Taffeta bow would be just fine, nothing more. Sometimes you have to know when to STOP and today was one of those days!

Even if it is too close to Easter this year or past Easter, as I said this Blessed Easter single stamp is beautiful and you can still use it.  Just cut off the greeting and use it separately. Go to my Stampin’ Up! Online Store and place your order! It’s also available as a digital download for My Digital Studio!

Easter is fast approaching, next Sunday to be exact, and of course I am behind in making Easter cards! This “Ears To You” stamp set is no longer available from Stampin’ Up! but perhaps you already purchased it – or you certainly can use the same idea with something else stamped in the background.

I started out trying to just have an oval punch with one rabbit showing through but that wasn’t working out so I decided to punch out the whole oval with one of the Oval Collection Framelits Dies. It reminds me of chocolate bunnies!  And now I have the punched out oval shape to use in another project that looks like another big chocolate Easter egg. The front of the card is embossed with the Fancy Fan Embossing Folder. I simply tied a piece of Pink Pirouette 3/8″ Taffeta Ribbon around the edge and punched out a little Pink Pirouette flower with the Petite Petals Punch in the Occasions Catalog using the scallop punch in the Punch Pack of 3 small punches. For a finishing touch I added a pink Candy Dot in the center!  Love those Candy Dots!

Speaking of the Punch Pack, it is one of the items in the Weekly Deals which end tonight! Just because the punches are small doesn’t mean they aren’t useful!  I use them often!

Here are the current Weekly Deals!  Place your order by midnight tonight!

Next Sunday is Easter so it is time to be making some easy Easter cards. For this card, the easy way to make Easter Eggs is to punch designer series paper with the Extra-Large Oval Punch. I chose the Watercolor Wonder Designer Series Paper to use because of the lovely colors and even the variations in shading, which is often how dyed Easter eggs come out when you make them. You can choose any pretty paper you like. For the strip of grass, I used my new Fringe Scissors and then pulled it a little back and forth with my fingers to give it some texture like grass. Then just arrange the paper Easter eggs however you like, perhaps adhering some flat on the card layer and popping some up with Stampin’ Dimensionals. I stamped the Happy Easter greeting in the upper corner with Tangerine Tango ink with a stamp from the Teeny Tiny Wishes. Love that stamp set, if I haven’t said that already in other posts!  It always has something I can use, and if just the stamp is too small for your card, you can always layer it on some punched pieces to make it appear larger.

Now lest you think an experienced Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator can stamp easily with no mistakes, I’ll tell you the story of the butterflies! After I stamped the Easter greeting and turned it over to apply adhesive, somehow it got a smudge of Tangerine Tango ink on it!  And I already had the eggs glued on and everything. Sometimes a good tip is to do your stamping first so in case you mess that up, you haven’t ruined the whole card. So in order to cover my two little smudges of ink in the wrong place, I punched out a piece of Daffodil Delight card stock with the Elegant Butterfly Punch and layered it with the smaller butterfly, punched with the Bitty Butterfly Punch out of a scrap of Watercolor Wonder DSP and added the Pearl Jewel Accents. Then for fun I punched another Bitty Butterfly from the Watercolor Wonder DSP, added some pearls and stuck him on another Easter egg!  Ink smudge fixed!

If I had it to do over, I would have probably put another egg or two on the front of the grass, not all of them behind the grass.  But I still like this card a lot the way it is!

Before the Easter Bunny comes to hide the eggs in your yard, you might want to check for any poison ivy in the yard that someone could get into! Why do I say that?  Because over a month ago my husband was raking leaves in the backyard by the back fence and apparently got some poison ivy oil on him. I guess he suspected it soon enough and was able to wash it off, although he did get a small blistery patch on the inside of his arm above his wrist but it went away pretty quickly. But then SOMEHOW I got it on my arm, maybe from the laundry, and have been battling it ever since, even having to go to Urgent Care one weekend when we were out of town for a stronger dose of steroid. That worked great and it went away – but as soon as that medicine was out of my system, the itching started again and the rash came back. I think it is mainly my body having an allergic reaction to getting poison ivy for the first time. It took awhile, but my husband finally identified a plant by the fence where he had been raking leaves that is most likely the poison ivy. Why is poison ivy growing in our backyard??!!! So don’t let your Easter egg hunt be ruined by any poison ivy in your yard!!

For any stamping supplies you need, please visit my Stampin’ Up! Online Store HERE. Remember, there are lots of other occasions coming up, like graduation, Mother’s Day, and weddings!

Easter is late this year, but as fast as time goes by, it will be here soon! The Eggstra Spectacular stamp set can help you make an easy Easter card that looks lovely and delicate. The card base is Coastal Cabana. I really liked this pattern of paper in the Retro Fresh Designer Series Paper. In fact, I love it on this card!

After die-cutting the two labels with the Labels Collection Framelits, I decided to use the Festive Paper Piercing Pack to make a pierced border around the background label. Doing the paper-piercing sometimes really adds a nice touch sometimes! The Very Vanilla label is stamped with the bunny from the Eggstra Spectacular Stamp Set with Coastal Cabana ink to make it monochromatic. For the bunny’s cottontail I used a White Pearl Jewel Accent. And to finish off the card, I used the Very Vanilla Seam Binding Ribbon, which was perfect! I thought the Very Vanilla stamped layer needed a little something so I just drew some lines with my Coastal Cabana Stampin’ Write Marker around the edge.

Yesterday I could NOT get a card made with this same stamp set and paper! I stamped upside down, I couldn’t “omit” the words on the stamp without getting excess ink in the wrong place – just everything I tried to do went wrong!  But today, this card came together perfectly! So even Stampin’ Up! Demonstrators have bad stamping days sometimes!

I hope you enjoy this card.  If you need any stamping supplies, just visit my Online Store HERE.