Hoppy Easter

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Spring is finally here and Easter is just around the corner! Wow, time does fly! Today was a fabulous day to be outside. I’m sorry for all of my friends who are still dealing with cold and snowy weather but here in sunny Arizona it was a beautiful day! We opened all the windows and my DH spent the day outside working in the yard. I love this time of year!

I have been too busy for papercrafting lately and I’ve been really looking forward to playing with some paper today. So of course I looked for some card challenges and I didn’t have to look far. I love Paper Smooches (PS) and so I started there. This week’s PS Sparks challenge is a Cool Shades color challenge. They are calling this color combo “Fiesta” but I felt like they would work perfectly for some Easter cards.

And it just happens that the Simon Says Stamp Challenge this week is Easter/Spring. I get a two for one deal this week. Inspiration and an opportunity to make some cute Easter cards that I will send to my friends and family.

I started with some PS stamps that I had not played with yet. A Magical Spring stamp set is new this year. I love the “Hoppy Easter” sentiment with the cute bunny! I also just replaced all my Stampin’ Up ink pads with the new foam ink pads so I was happy to look for colors to use for the Cool Shades challenge. I used the egg stamp from A Magical Spring to create a patterned paper using the Fiesta colors by stamping random eggs on 4 x 5.25 inch panels of white cardstock.

I cut the panels into 1 x 4 inch strips. I also stamped the sentiments on white cardstock and cut them into strips using my scissors so they are not perfect. I used the“Happy” stamp from the Party Posse stamp set so that I could make some cards with “Happy Easter” but I haven’t finished those cards yet.

I wanted to use my cute frame die from PS; Duo Die 1. Paper Smooches recently started making dies and I am thrilled! I often cut around their cute stamps and now I can use the dies – YEAH! I used Stampin’ Up patterned paper to make the frames. I LOVE the pattern with this frame! I thought I needed a different patterned paper inside the frame and found a great paper in Recollections Boo Hoo collection,a Halloween stack from Michael’s. I know, wrong holiday but right color! I stamped the bunnies onto white cardstock and cut them out. I dug into my scrap stash and found some Bazzil cardstock that I used to create decorative strips using a Martha Stewart edge punch. I used an oval punch from Stampin’ Up to make eggs. The eggs looked a little plain so I added texture with embossing folders. I used a Stampin’ Up chevron folder and a Tim Holtz distressed dots folder.

When all the card pieces were ready I added adhesives. I like to use double sided adhesive strips for panels and strips. I wanted to add some depth so I used Stampin’ Up dimensionals to pop up the frames and the eggs. I’m kind of fussy about adding adhesives. Some may say I use too much and I suppose I could use less to save some $ on adhesives. Especially when you stop and realize that not everyone will actually keep the cards. Gasp! Yes some people will toss them in the trash after a while. I accept that. Let’s move on. What I’m trying to say is that I like my panels to be solidly adhered to the card base. I like to use a wider strip for the background panels. I used 1/2 inch wide adhesive strips for this project. I have used 1/4 inch wide adhesive strips and they work fine. What is more important in my experience, is getting the adhesive strips as close to the edge as possible. I like to run a strip down the center also, just to keep the panel close to the card base. I feel that this makes the card look more polished. Here is a photo to show you what I’m talking about.