Happy Easter - Handy Hippo Thursday! Week #10

Good Morning Everyone,

And a very happy Handy Hippo Thursday to you all wherever you are. Here in my particular corner of paradise it's a bright shiny day, although a tad colder (3°C/42°F) than it's been of late. And this, while the rest of the UK seems to be suffering Arctic conditions! It's such a pity that the warm weather hasn't continued because now we are into the Easter break. Egg hunts are not quite the fun they should be in the snow :(

And talking of Easter, here's my share for today ...

... an Easter card, what else? :)

It's a quick and easy made vertical stepper card in the colours of spring - shades of pastel green and yellow and featuring my favourite, polka dots. On the die-cut topper there's a cute hedgehog and bee taken from one of the very useful Penny Black Stickeroos sheets now available and proving very popular with more than a few of our blogging friends :) They are great when you are short of the time needed to stamp and colour an image. The flowers have been created using a mix of die-cut and punched shapes . The greeting was computer generated.

Here's a view of the inside giving a better sense of how the card is shaped. Even with the flower embellishments on it this shape folds down reasonably flat for posting ... a fact worth considering now that UK postage is going up yet again!

As usual materials used for this project are available from HandyHippo 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 to your basket any other purchase that you might like and if something is temporarily out of stock you can request to be emailed once it is back in stock.

Here's how I made the card:

• Trim the polka-dotted paper to measure 5¾" x 11½", fold in half with the pattern to the inside - this is the reverse of what we would usually do. Next fold half the front of the card back on itself to reveal the pattern. 
• Print the 'Happy Easter' greeting from your PC onto the pastel green card, or you could stamp it if you have a suitable stamp ... I didn't so had to improvise. Here it is in PNG for anyone who would like to download it.

• Fit a small labels die round the greeting before cutting and cut another next size up in the yellow for matting.
• Similarly cut the labels in the two largest sizes, one green, one yellow for the topper.
• Note: I've used Spellbinders Labels Nine and Splendid Circles for this project but, in true Sue Wilson fashion, these could be substituted with any other similarly shaped dies.
• Adhere the little PB hedgehog and bee from the Stickeroos sheet to the green label and mat it with the yellow label. Add double-sided foam to the left side of the topper and adhere it to the front flap of the card as in the photograph. 
• Similarly glue the greeting label to its mat and adhere to the bottom right corner of the card.
• Cut two leaf sprays from the green card.
• To make the flowers I've used two sizes of daisy punch together with the two smallest of the Splendid Circles dies. The shapes were cut out several times from the snippets of leftover card, there are even two polka dot daisies - enough to make 6 flowers in various sizes altogether. The daisy shapes have been shaped with a bone folder to turn upwards to create some dimension. I then put the various shapes together, ensuring that the colours alternated, to form several flowers.
• Arrange the leaf sprays and 4 flowers around the front flap, one flower top right inside and the smallest on the greeting label, as seen in the photograph.
• The final touch is to add the pearls to the centre of the flowers.

Once again, I hope these instructions are clear enough for you to follow but if you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will do my best to answer your questions.

I'm off to try to catch up on the backlog of stuff I have sitting on my desk waiting to be done. I wasn't planning to make any more Easter cards but then realised that I have two babies in the family who should have a card - especially as for one it's her first ever Easter.

Due to the Easter break Handy Hippo Thursday will be taking a break too ... it will, however, be back for Thursday 19th April. In the meantime, I hope you all have a great day and a lovely Easter holiday.

Take care as always and happy crafting.