RHINO WISHES

 Right now, through the end of July, Stampin' Up! has a great promotion going. Basically, any of the Designer Series Papers that are priced at $11 per pack, namely on pages 189, 190 and 191, are BUY THREE, GET ONE FREE! 

Well, if you haven't taken a look at this year's offerings of Designer Series Paper (DSP), quick log on to Stampin' Up!, click on my blog's Shop Now button, or whip out your hard copy of the catalog! QUICK! The DSPs this year are wonderful!

In fact, I ordered my four packs (one free!) immediately: Underneath the Mistletoe, Nature's Poem, both on page 189, Animal Expedition, page 190, and the 6" x 6" pack, Tropical Escape, on page 190.

When Mr. Brown finally delivered my package, I was awestruck as I ripped open those packs and flipped through the many designs! Even though I love each and every pack I'd gotten, I was most anxious to cut into Animal Expedition. You see, there are two sheets of larger-sized animals that I was just longing to take my Paper Snips to.

So, I proceeded to carefully trim one sheet in half. 

From just that portion of one sheet, I got all these animals. I even cut out the tiny flying birdies and the cool chameleons (I think they are).

Notice that the animals are turned both left and right, so that gives even more opportunity and variety for use. 

In getting started making a card, it was a hard choice to decide which of the animals to use. Loving each of the larger animals for a focal point, I decided to go with the laid-back rhino, since I'd cut three of them. Great reasoning, eh?

And this is the card I came up with featuring Mr. Rhino:

I took a short length of the 5/8" Burlap Ribbon (page 200), and fringed both ends. The ribbon is held together with thin nylon (?) filament, so I snipped the filament in order to do some fraying. I added this piece to a 2" circle punched from Crumb Cake cardstock, then popped up Mr. Rhino on top with some Dimensionals.

To continue in the same vein, I added a sentiment from the Happy Birthday Gorgeous set on page 72, added one end of frayed Burlap Ribbon, and flew one of my cut-out birds in the upper left corner. The sentiment was stamped in Call Me Clover to match the solid cardstock upon which our rhino guy has taken up residence.

These few elements popped up give the card nice dimension, although it isn't too thick to send through the mail. I always like when that happens!

I added the rest of my greeting inside the card -- Call Me Clover on top of the Crumb Cake cardstock -- plus one of the chameleons.

Just two more photos showing the soft dimension:

I wanted to specifically point out the wonderful texture on the Call Me Clover cardstock. Nope, that's not the way it came! I used the new Subtle Embossing Folder, found on page 223. This is the one that lots of people are questioning the looks of, since in the catalog the texture doesn't show up very well at all. The texture created by the Subtle Embossing Folder is simply marvelous, and already I've used it many many times!

 Please note the left side of the card. Don't you just love that sheet of the DSP? 

It features leaves, little swatches of triangles, a few flying bugs and 

some of the precious birdies!

After I finished taking photos for this blog post, I went out to the deck and started to demolish the remaining portion of the DSP. Those animals are treasures.

Have you ever given fussy cutting a sheet of Designer Series Paper a try? Many of them are conducive to doing so. Just think of all the little separate focal points you'll have to play with! 

Wild

Smiles.