ihp Design Team Challenge

Since tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day our i {heart} papers design team challenge is to go green! Not necessarily the color green, but the other green...the reduce, reuse, recycle kind.  And this was a challenge with a twist!  We are using this week's Paper Craft Planet sketch as inspiration for our cards! 


I had SO much fun with this challenge!  It all started with a cute little idea that I saw over the weekend during my trip to Ocala.  Theirs used a hinged acrylic package with a heart-shaped bubble filled with pastel candies...so adorable!  When I saw a package of buttons in a magnetic-bottomed watchmakers tin, I just had to have 'em, as much for the packaging as the product!  ;)

I used the insert from the package as a template to cut my Cosmo Cricket Garden Variety designer paper, then added a strip of ivory card stock punched with a scalloped border and stamped with a sentiment.  The cute gardener bunny from OCL's Hoppin' into Spring was stamped with Memento on a scrap of card stock, colored with Copics, cut out and glued onto the border.  (Since dh is Patrick and ds Matthew Patrick and it is the day before St. Patrick's Day, I figured he needed a green jacket!)  All the edges were inked with Tim Holtz distress ink...just goes along with the other quote in this cute set!

For the matching card, I used another Garden Variety designer print, along with another green element, a strip of one of the corrugated wrappers that insulate a hot cup of coffee (this one is not the designer coffee variety!)  For the focal point, I inked only a portion of the sentiment, placing it alongside another image from Hoppin' into  Spring.  I added a couple of brads laced with some jute thread in hopes of adding to the garden atmosphere (as in pole-tied beans, etc.) and heavily distressed all the edges.  I used nesties small and large circles to cut and emboss the carrot, which mimics the designer print used on the candy container and therefore hopefully unifies the projects.

Here's some more eye candy for you!

• Carolyn
• Cathleen
• Gretchen
• Kendra
• Loretta
• Lori
• Lynn
• Megan
• Tracy
• Kate

The theme for this month's Dirty Dozen gallery is All Creatures Great and Small.  Several DDAlumni have started a special gallery honoring our friend and fellow alumnus Susan, and I've included my furry rabbit friend.  As you read about what she and her husband are facing, please say a prayer for them!

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you'll come back again soon!