HANDY HIPPO THURSDAY! - WEEK #4

Good Morning ...

... and Happy Handy Hippo Thursday to you all.

After celebrating Valentine's Day with a romantic card last week, I thought I'd bring you a bit of spring today. Sparkling butterflies and a delightful sleeping kitten in fresh green and cream remind us that here in the UK the warmer weather is just around the corner.

As you can see I've used a lovely embossing folder with my Cuttlebug. If you haven't as yet acquired an embossing machine, I see Handy Hippo has the Cuttlebug on offer with a whacking 21% reduction in the price at the time of writing. 

As a willing and devoted servant to our cat, Bonnie, aka The Boss, I couldn't resist the sleeping kitten stamp, and the sentiment stamp is one I have used often ... it's appropriate for just about anyone with a birthday coming up and I particularly like the mix of fonts used.

As you can see I just had to stamp the kitten on the back of the card too ... getting value for money out of it :)

Materials used for this project are available from Handy Hippo and if you would like to make the same project then simply click on the magic button below and it will take you directly to a shopping cart that contains everything you would need to make it. Once there, you can simply and easily remove any of the items that you already have in your craft stash.

It’s easy to add any other purchase that you might like to your basket and if something is temporarily out of stock you can click to be emailed once it is back in stock.

Here is a step-by-step guide to how this card is made:

• The base of the card is a ready-made white A6 size card - quick and easy.
• Trim a mat of pastel green card to fit the front exactly.
• Trim a piece of cream card, slightly smaller to leave a margin when matted.
• Place the cream card in the embossing folder and run through the embossing machine.
• Adhere the embossed card to the pastel green piece.
• Trim three 1" wide strips from the width of the patterned paper.
• To make the concertina flower: punch a 1" circle of white cardstock ready as the base of the concertina flower. Taking two of the strips and  using a scoring board, score at 1cm intervals, then fold the strips in a series of mountain and valley folds - keeping them straight by holding them between your fingers - and tighten the folds flat. Adhere the strips together at both ends and press the folds together again to form a concertina flower. Put a blob of glue gel on the circle of card in readiness and then press the flower down on to the glue and hold down flat until the glue sets. I admit this takes a bit of practice but it's worth persevering. 
• Stamp the sleeping kitten using the brown ink pad onto a small piece of cream card. Punch out the image using a circle punch and using distress ink sponge the edges. When dry glue the circle to the centre of the concertina flower.
• Wrap the remaining strip of patterned paper round  the embossed topper, approximately 1" from the bottom edge. Adhere lace to top and bottom edges of the patterned paper and the organza ribbon along the centre. Stick all the edges to the back of the topper before adhering it to the front of the card.
• Adhere the concertina flower to the left side of the trim.
• Draw around the butterflies with a glue pen and sprinkle with iridescent glitter. Do the same around the edges of the concertina flower and the kitten centrepiece.
• Colour 14 of the small white pearls with the green ProMarker before adhering them to the butterflies' bodies, the ribbon and the two top corners of the embossed panel.
• Stamp with the brown ink pad inside, the kitten in the centre of the left side and the sentiment centrally on the right. 
• Finally, stamp the kitten centrally on the back of the card 

I hope you like this card ... I think it's my favourite up to now, but then kittens and butterflies are on my list of my favourite things :)  

I'll be back next Thursday with another project but in the meantime let me know what you think of this one. And if I have not explained clearly enough how to make the concertina flower, or any other aspect of the design, and I will do my best to clarify.

Take care everyone and I wish you all a wonderful weekend.

Happy Crafting,