My Favorite Things Happy Hippo Celebrates

Hi there,

I am back again with a very special celebration card. My granddaughter is turning a BIG 6 years old so I wanted to make something fun and interactive for her since she loovveess to make and receive cards. One of her favorite things is to sit in my craft room with me and create. So, this card is for little Mackenzie (Mac for short)!

Shaker cards are so much fun and thankfully easier than they look. This card starts out with water coloring the watercolor paper with a few distress oxide inks. To do this, I first smooched a patch of Picked Raspberry, Twisted Citron, Broken China and Wilted Violet distress oxide inks onto my acrylic sheet. (Hint: if you don’t have an acrylic sheet, use a non-stick craft sheet or a stout piece of acetate or plastic). Next, I spritzed both a piece of watercolor paper and the distress inks with clean water. I wanted the inks spritzed enough to loosen them up so I could dab the color onto the paper in a random fashion.

Once the paper was completely colored and dry, I cut out the ‘Celebrate’ using the My Favorite Things Speech Bubble Celebrate die. Oh, and before I put the inks away, I quickly colored a scrap of paper with the twisted citron distress oxide ink to use later for the balloon.

With the water coloring complete and Memento Tuxedo Black in hand, I stamped the hippo, party hats, cupcake and chicks, from the My Favorite Things Happy Hippo stamp set, onto white card stock (110lb.) and colored them with Copic markers. A quick Copic reference guide is below.

Before I assembled the card, I wanted to make sure I had all the pieces ready, so I stamped party hats and cupcakes onto a piece of Cotton Candy cardstock with Versamark ink, sprinkled white embossing powder and heat set.  Then, I trimmed the panel into a rectangle, rounded the corners with a corner chomper and blending on Worn Lipstick distress ink around the edges to bring out the detail.

Next, before I put the Versamark ink away, I stamped the sentiment onto black card stock, sprinkled with white embossing powder and heat set. The sentiment was then cut out using the My Favorite Things Stitched Rectangular Word Windows die set.

With all the pieces done, it is time to put it all together into a shaker card. To start, a clear acetate piece was taped to the back of the celebrate speech bubble, then two layers of foam tape (one layer stacked on top of the other) were added to the back too.  I made sure I added foam tape between the letters too so it created a ‘well’ for the colorful balls from the Queen & Co. Pops III Toppings set to fit into for each letter. Then, I peeled off the release tape and positioned a solid piece of paper, the same size as the speech bubble, and covered the back to hold all the colored balls in place.

To complete the card, I rounded the corners of a white card base, added the pink and embossing background, then adhered the complete shaker speech bubble to the top. The critters, sentiment, party hats, et al were added with foam tape… and done!

Thanks for joining me today. Hope to see you real soon!

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