Hope Blooms Spotlight Hopping

Hi again!  It's time to shine for our final Verve spotlight before tonight's Release PARTY!   It's the fourth day of hopping, and once again there's a prize hidden on one of today's hop spots! Just leave a little shout-out in the comments as you hop about for a chance to win some new Verve of your very own! The deadline for prize commenting is tonight {4/15} at 6PM Mountain.  Winners will be announced at our Release PARTY!

Today the Divas are spotlighting Hope Blooms, an all-occasion sentiment with three fabulous blooms.  I'm totally smitten with the three blooms in this set, not to mention the fonts! It seriously makes me happy just to sit and stare at them in their packaging!  (And that's definitely saying something considering the number of stamp sets I've packaged in the last few years!) Anyhow, for my card, I went with a birthday theme and the April Get Your Diva On challenge!

And, if you've been all giddy with release week excitement and forgot about the challenge, never fear, you have until Sunday night to get your entries in!  One entry will be chosen to be a Guest Diva for a future release, receiving all the stamps and dies for that release and will be spotlight hopping right here alongside all the Divas!  Sounds exciting, huh?  Well, come play along!  This month's challenge is hosted by Amber, and she's cooked up a recipe challenge, complete with a little chart that changes depending on the first letter of your name, so be sure to check out all the details on the challenge thread!

Hi... my name is Julee and I love turquoise, brown and pink, and have been known to have a thing for twine, buttons and brads!  {grin}  So that's where I started, and not to be one to limit my layers, I had every intention of making a circle card.  ONLY... see that baja breeze circle?  That was my original card size!  EEKS!  Way too small to fit all the goodies I was stamping with the new Hope Blooms set!  Luckily Amber allowed us one category substitution.  So I switched out my circle card for a long shaped card and all was well again!

I did a little background stamping with the blooms both on the cream layer and the baja breeze layer.  Then I cut the Floral Circles dies from Pink Pirouette and stamped the blooms over it. The flowers are slightly bigger than the dies when paired straight across and I think it gives a real natural look to them!  Why don't we get a little close-up... don't be shy?! {giggle} I accented the flower with a button and layered them on dimensionals.

Next up I stamped the smallest bloom on a punched out circle, then stamped over it with the Wish Big sentiment from Birthday Phrases.  Then this is matted and layered onto Charming Oval Dies, another circle punch and finally matted with the large Floral Circle die.  Pretty cool looking thingamabob, huh?

Oh, and there's the happy birthday sentiment!  I just love the combination of a big fat font with a skinny scripty font!  In fact I love it so much that I used it as a background as well as the sentiment for the card!  Then I just finished off the recipe with some loopy looped twine.  Such a fun challenge!

Okay, that's enough rambling!  The Divas are also spotlighting the Proverbs 16:9 Plain Jane today, so hop around to see what everyone chose to play with!

1. Julee 8. Jackie 2. Tosh 9. Charmaine 3. Amber 10. Janelle 4. Amy 11. Teresa 5. Maureen 12. Laurie 6. Cresta 13. Sankari 7. Andrea 14. Melissa TODAY'S PRIZE: Hope Blooms, Proverbs 16:9 Plain Jane and Floral Circles Die Set

Enabler's List:
Stamps: Hope Blooms, Birthday Phrases (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Crumb Cake, Pink Pirouette, Baja Breeze, Early Espresso (SU!), Natural White (Neenah)
Ink: Baja Breeze, Pink Pirouette, Crumb Cake, Early Espresso (SU!)
Accessories: Floral Circles Die Set, Charming Oval Die Set, Classic and Petite Scallop Circles Nestabilities (Spellbinders), circle punches (SU!), button, brads, twine, corner chomper