The Wacky Watercooler March Madness Blog Hop

Welcome to our Wacky Watercooler March Madness Blog Hop.  The fluctuating weather this winter has left many of us feeling a bit like the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland.  In fact, there have been sufficient odd happenings during the preparation for this blog hop that felt an awful lot as if the world around me was, indeed, going mad.

Spring is right around the corner.  Actually, the first day of Spring will be on Friday, during our Blog Hop.  How appropriate, therefore, that I had Spring on my mind while creating my projects.  With all the wonderful Spring-themed products in the Occasions Catalogue, finding something to use was no problem at all.

Our Blog Hops run in a circular manner.  What this means is that no matter where you begin, as you go from one participant to the next, you will inevitably wind up at the point where you began.  I hope you'll find time to check out all our blogs.

If you've been moving forward in the blog hop, you'll have joined me after visiting Anna Smith's blog.  Anna is brand new to our team but I've checked out her blog and love her creativity.  I'm sure you will, too.

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This month we decided that we would all create a card featuring a fancy or special fold.  There are so many types of special fold cards and so I had problems choosing just one.  Each time I thought I knew what I would be doing, I changed my mind in favour of a different fold.  Yes, I'm that fickle.  Well, finally time runs out and you can't change your mind any longer.  I decided to make a tri-fold card.  I've made a number and they allow so much freedom of interpretation.  Just to immerse myself in the "world of tri-folds", I searched the internet.  To my surprise, there was a special tri-fold that I hadn't seen before or tried.  Of course that's the one I chose to make.

The original creator of this style of tri-fold is Desire Fourie of South Africa.  The front of the card is quite normal and doesn't hint that this will be a special fold card.  Then you open it up and it's a tri-fold.  I hope you love my card as much as I loved making it.

The front is a combination of Naturals White, Shimmery White, Pacific Point, Hello Honey, Whisper White and Vellum cardstock.  For my sentiment I heat embossed the wonderful sentiment from the Build a Bouquet stamp set on Shimmery White using Clear embossing powder.  Then I sponged it using Pacific Point, Wild Wasabi and Hello Honey inks in the emboss resist technique.

For the inside I went a bit over the top.  Again, I used the same cardstocks and also added the beautiful Painted Blooms Designer Series Paper.  The design of this special fold allowed me to spotlight the sentiment on one side and then also have an area for writing on the other side.  I used more of the images from the Build a Bouquet stamp set as well as the Painted Petals stamp set but the sentiment is from the newly released Lovely Amazing You stamp set.  I thought it complimented the front sentiment beautifully.  What I especially love about the butterflies from the Build a Bouquet stamp set is that they are precisely the right shape and size to be cut using the Elegant Butterfly punch.

Normally I would post a template for my fold but this card is very oversized at 6 1/4" x 5 1/4".  Next week I will post another card using this special fold but I will have re-designed it so that it can be used with the 5 1/2" x 4 1/4" format.

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I saw the most beautiful filigree silver candle holder in a shop while I was out of town.  While I didn't buy it, I knew I could re-create a very similar candle holder using some of my Stampin' Up! specialty papers.  The thinlit dies that we currently have available to us were perfect for my project.  I used the Striped Scallop thinlit as well as one of the butterlies from the new Butterflies Thinlits dies.  For my base I used one of the Floral Frames Collection framelits.

Primarily I used the Silver Glimmer Paper.  As a liner, I used the Vellum cardstock.  Inside where you can't see it, I have a circle cut from the Silver Foil so that the light from the battery-operated candle would be reflected upwards.  You'll notice that one of the butterflies is smaller than the other two.  I cut the added small dots away, leaving it as a smaller butterfly.  Actually, I love the way that butterfly looks and will do that again with future projects. 

Doesn't it look pretty with the lit candle inside?

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My final project is all about Easter.  Instead of using the "normal" Easter colours, however, I decided to use the elegance of whites, greys and blacks with a bit of subtle colour sparingly added.  I had been thinking about creating an egg using the Chalkboard paper and Craft White ink for a while and decided to make that idea a reality for this project.  I used the gorgeous Something Lacy background stamp.  The design was stunning against the matte black of the Chalkboard.  After the ink had dried, I sponged a bit of Basic Black around the perimeter of the oval to give it more dimension.

The expression "mad as a March hare" has been used for centuries and the image of the dancing hare from  the Happy Easter Bunny stamp always makes me think of it.  Since I am a compulsive fussy-cutter, this gave me the opportunity to give into my compulsion and I carefully cut out the stamped bunny, whiskers and all.  After colouring him with very muted tones, I mounted him across the "egg".  I also cut out the sentiment from the same stamp and created a banner to counter-balance the bunny on the card.

That brighter pop of colour in the bunny's neck-tie and backing the banner is Calypso Coral.

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Well, that's it for my projects.  I hope you've enjoyed my part of the March Madness Blog Hop.  If you get a moment, please leave a comment and let me know what you thought of them.

Your next stop will be with another newcomer to our group, Linda Wicks.  I'm sure you'll be amazed with her creativity.