Pink and white Easter card...

 As I was making my Easter cards, I realized that I didn't have a single one with a traditional bunny on it. I had to make at least ONE with a bunny!

I had this lovely pale pink Core'dinations cardstock that I wanted to use for this card. I embossed it with the Darice 5" X 7" Plaid embossing folder. I actually sanded the top of the embossed cardstock, but because the color is nearly the same on the outside as it is on the inside, the sanding didn't show any real contrast. I heat embossed "Happy Easter" onto a vellum banner which is attached to the front of the card underneath the two little tiles you see at the end of it. I think I also added a tiny bit of vellum adhesive under the sentiment, itself.

The bunny was cut from the Kate's ABCs cartridge. I cut it a couple of times out of white cardstock and glued the layers together. Then I flocked the bunny (love that stuff!) and added a white bow and a pink pearl for an eye.

After I had placed my bunny on my card with some foam dots, I realized that it was just kind of hanging there in mid-air and needed something to stand on. I used my Fiskars grass border punch to punch a little grass and trimmed it so it would just fit around the bunny. I also added a tiny pink butterfly (also a Fiskars punch).

For the inside, I printed the sentiment using my computer, then inked around the insert. A little strip of cardstock and two more sparkly tile embellishments finished it!

Have you finished all your Easter cards yet? My sister informed me that she has made 30 of them - a dozen ahead of me (not that we compete....much). I made a list today of all those family members and friends that I want to send Easter cards to and discovered that I need four more. Back to the drawing board...

Thanks so much for stopping by, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day.
Cheryl

"Hoop" you have an awesome day...

I decided to take a little break from Easter cards, and share a birthday card I made a while ago.

I made these two cards for my daughter to have for her "card drawer." Her kids seem to get invited to lots of birthday parties, so it's nice for her to have a few different cards on hand for those occasions.

The basketball and hoop were cut from the Father's Day cartridge. Can you see how I debossed the basketball with the Swiss Dots embossing folder?  I debossed it a second time in a slightly different position so that the indentations didn't look too evenly spaced. When you do this, you have to go back with an embossing tool and and re-do the first indentations, but that only takes seconds.

The Father's Day cartridge is a "lite" cartridge, but I use it quite a bit for male cards.

The inside was the same for both cards - just done in different colors. I added the faux stitching with a gel pen. These were very quick cards to make, but I like the way they turned out.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day.
Cheryl

Pretty posies all in a row...

Sometimes just a simple line of flowers says it all. I pierced straight lines for the flower stems and then joined the pierced holes with a green gel pen for some faux stitching.

The flowers were punched with the Martha Stewart hydrangea punch and some colored gems added to the centers.

The inside was decorated with a single flower, and the sentiment was computer generated. Easy peasy!

If you're looking for some quick Easter cards to make, this one takes only minutes.

We had a lovely day today, and although it was only in the 40s, much of our snow has melted. Predictions are for near 60-degree temps on Sunday, so I am hopeful for most of our snow to disappear. It's very sad when there is still snow on the ground on Easter Sunday!!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day.
Cheryl

An Easter card without flowers...

What? No flowers? Nope. Not on this one.  It's one of only two Easter cards that I managed to make with no flowers. The word "Easter" is actually a glittery foam self-stick embellishment that I picked up for just a few cents after Easter last year. It also came with the word "Happy" in the same foam letters, but I opted to stamp "happy" on a little tag (Spellbinders die), instead. The glittery letters match the yellow glitter lines in the DSP so perfectly.

The cute little chick is a stamp from the dollar bins at Michael's. I've colored him with my ProMarkers, cut him out with a circle die and popped him onto a Lifestyle Crafts nesting doily circle die cut.

The inside is fairly plain. I used a simple decoration made from a strip of the same DSP that I used on the front of the card. The glittery strip adds a fun bit of sparkle.

Snow update: We definitely got the 6-10" that was forecast. When I was shoveling the walk this morning, it seemed a lot closer to 10" than 6"!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day.

Have a great weekend, Cheryl

My favorite Easter card so far...

This card is also very "flowery," but I actually really like this one. I think it's the brick wall behind the floral wreath that I really appreciate. LOL

I brayered the top side of my Tim Holtz embossing folder with "bundled sage" distress ink, then carefully closed it onto a white piece of cardstock and ran it through my Cuttlebug. I think the "bundled sage" was the perfect color! I happened to have some cardstock that same color to use as my mat.

To make the wreath, I used two circle dies, one evenly spaced inside the other on a piece of white cardstock to cut a 1/4" wide ring that was about 2 1/2" in diameter (outer edge to outer edge). I used three different leaf punches and three different flower punches. I also used three different colors of cardstock for the leaves and, as you can see, three different colors for the flowers. Once I had everything punched it was easy to assemble the wreath. I put a glob of glue onto a scrap of paper and just lightly dipped each leaf or leafy branch into the glue and then adhered it to the ring. Once all the leaves were on, I shaped the flowers with an embossing tool and began to adhere them.

After the flowers had all been adhered, I added the double bow and some Viva Decor liquid pearl to the center of each of the flowers.

It honestly didn't take long at all and was kind of fun to put together.

After the wreath was thoroughly dried, it was easy to adhere the whole thing to the front of the card.

For the inside, I used one of the beautiful sentiments from Hannelie (Desert Diva). She creates absolutely wonderful word art and shares it all with her readers. You'll find her blog here and her Easter sentiments here.

I think sentiments are some of the hardest parts of card making, so I really appreciate Hannelie's generosity.

You can see in the photo that I added a few flowers to the inside of the card, too. I had some of the flowers and leaves left over after making my wreath, so I thought this was the perfect way to use them up.

I hope you enjoyed seeing another one of my flowery Easter cards. We are supposed to get 6-10" of snow tonight, so I NEED to keep looking at these flowers to maintain any semblance of sanity!

Thanks so much for stopping by and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day. If you see someone running amok in the snowdrifts laughing like a crazy person - it'll be me. Gone mad with the onslaught of yet another storm!
Cheryl

It's been a loooooong winter...

...and I guess I'm craving flowers, because most of my Easter cards are very floral-focused.  Here's what I mean:

The 3-dimensional flowers on this card are each made with 3 different punches and adhered to a Spellbinders Romantic Rectangles die cut. Although it doesn't look like it in the photo, I tried to match them to the pink, blue and purple flowers in the DSP. I think they look much better IRL.

The leafy flourish was made with a Cheery Lynn die. There are actually two of these flourishes on the card.

The framed "Happy Easter" is a stamp - one of those dollar stamps from Michael's - that I heat embossed and then cut out. I colored the little frame with a ProMarker and added the tiny lavendar bow.

On the inside, I mirrored the front design by using some more of the DSP and another of the die cuts for the sentiment

Hope you enjoyed seeing another of my flowery Easter cards.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day.
Cheryl

Finally, some Easter cards to share...

...and not a moment too soon. In fact, if I don't get them all done in short order, it'll be too late to even get them in the mail. I've managed to make 16 or so, but don't worry - I'm not going to share them ALL with you today--just a couple of them.

My first card was pretty simple:

I cut a scalloped oval with a Spellbinders die in a piece of white card. I cut the blue mat to size, placed the white card (with the cutout) on top and slid my oval die between the two until it was in the right place. I used some washi tape to hold it there and then ran it through my Cuttlebug to cut out the oval. The sentiment is stamped directly onto the card base.

The flourish is a Cheery Lynn die. I cut the leafy flourish out of some adhesive-backed cardstock to make it easy to adhere onto the card.

The flowers were made with two different sized punches and a Viva Decor pearl pen for the centers.

I thought this card was okay, but a little plain, so I decided to try again:

I used the same process on this card, except I dry-embossed the top layer of white card. I was much happier with the result!

Here's a close-up peek at the sentiment and the flowers and flourish.

Do you ever have trouble with Liquid Pearls, Viva Decor pearls or glitter glue remaining a little sticky even after you've given it ample time to dry?  I sprinkle on a little baby powder and then blow off the excess to cure this problem.

This is a little peek at the inside. In seeing how plain it looks in the photo, I think I should add a flower or two before I send this out.

Edited to add: The inside sentiment is from the wonderfully talented Hannelie (Desert Diva) who shares her artwork with all of us. You'll find her Easter sentiments here.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day.
Cheryl