April Diva Dare - Day 10

Good morning and HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!! I hope all of you momma's out there, whether your babies have 2 legs, or 4 (like mine!), have a wonderful day filled with family and love!

I'm here on the tail end of the April Diva Dare, have you played along yet?

For those of you that are new to this challenge, here is how it works...following each release, we will post a theme that we dare you with, and you'll have two weeks to complete the challenge. During those two weeks, the release team will post their creations and tell you how they answered the dare!

This month we dare you to make a card, project, layout, or whatever fits your stamping style using this month's theme - April Showers Bring May Flowers! With the warmer weather, new growth, and all the fresh and beautiful blooms that abound, it is easy to be inspired by Spring! How you interpret the dare is completely up to you! To sweeten up the challenge, stay tuned to learn how you could win some brand new Verve!

For my project, I really wanted to make something I could send to my mom for Mother's Day! I've been seeing and LOVING all the hoop art on Pinterest, but can't find one of the wood hoops here in Oki. BOO. SO I decided to stamp on the aida cloth and put it in a frame instead of the hoop! Here's how my project came out...

I'm sorry for the terrible picture, but I waited until it was too late to get a good picture so I had to take it outside, and the BBQ pit doesn't exactly make a great backdrop, lol! 

Anyway, I stamped the leaves and flowers from Bloom and Grow different colored inks right onto the cloth background. I cut some flowers out of the aida cloth with my Floral Circles dies and then stamped the flowers and added buttons. The sentiment is from Love Deepens. For a final touch, I thought I'd spray some Glimmer Mist onto the cloth to age it a bit...bad idea. It blurred the ink that I hit so I quit spraying, lol! Next time maybe I'll try that first, and wait for it to dry before I start stamping. I added some pearls and ribbon and then stuck the whole piece in the frame. I really really love how this turned out and can't wait to make one for myself:)

EDITED TO ADD: I was asked what ink I used to stamp on the cloth, SO sorry I forgot to add that information:) The leaves are Rich Cocoa (Memento), and the flowers are Cherry Cobbler, Baja Breeze, and Old Olive (all SU!)

Confession time...I was supposed to post on Friday and completely forgot, so the deadline for playing alot is passed, but here are the details anyway:)

1. Play along with us and link up your new April Showers Bring May Flowers creation (posted April 22nd or later) to the linky widget on the DAY ONE post before midnight MST on Sunday, May 8th. One lucky stamper will win a $30.00 gift certificate to the Verve Store. Verve Stamps are not required, but if you've got 'em we would  LOVE to see ‘em!
2. For another chance to win, be sure to give the Divas a little shout-out in the comments section as we share our April Showers Bring May Flowers creations. One lucky commenter will win the Verve stamp set of his or her choosing!  Winners will be announced on Monday, May 9th right here on the Verve blog.

Now it's YOUR turn!  We DARE you to show us your creations!

April Verve Diva Dare ~ Day 5

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Good morning Verve fans!  It's Maureen and Day 5 of the April Diva Dare!  For those of you that are new to this challenge, here is how it works...following each release, we will post a theme that we dare you with, and you'll have two weeks to complete the challenge.  During those two weeks, the release team will post their creations and tell you how they answered the dare!

This month we dare you to make a card, project, layout, or whatever fits your stamping style using this month's theme - April Showers Bring May Flowers!  With the warmer weather, new growth, and all the fresh and beautiful blooms that abound, it is easy to be inspired by Spring!  How you interpret the dare is completely up to you!  To sweeten up the challenge, stay tuned to learn how you could win some brand new Verve!  Okay, here’s how I answered the DARE…

I have been having a ball lately making paper flowers with my stash of sheet music paper (from Janelle!).  So I cut out 4 layers of paper with the large and medium Floral Circle dies, scrunched and inked them up with a bit of tea dye ink and attached all the layers with some crystal brads.  For the leaves, I die cut some balsa wood with the Elegant Leaves die and stamped the matching image from Bloom and Grow in chocolate chip.  I found that green wasn’t bold enough to show up against this fabulous Basicgrey paper.  The Classy Label die with matching stamp image from Love Notes was the perfect shape and size to hold the Love Deepens sentiment.  Now, I just couldn’t stop at a card…remember these flower pots on Splitcoast Stampers?  LOL  I saw these 2 years ago and fell in love with the idea so I thought I’d revisit it!

I tried keeping the flowers relatively flat so that this could eventually be used as a book mark.  Again, I made the flowers using the Floral Circle dies and stamped the bookmark with 2 sentiments from Love Deepens.  This time, however, the Elegant Leaves are just die cut from cardstock….balsa wood is very fragile, especially after being flattened in the Cuttlebug so it wouldn’t last very long on a book mark (my little FYI to you! lol). 

Want to know how you can win some fabulous new VERVE GOODIES?

1. Play along with us and link up your new April Showers Bring May Flowers creation (posted April 22nd or later) to the linky widget on the DAY ONE post before midnight MST on Saturday, May 7th. One lucky stamper will win a $30.00 gift certificate to the Verve Store. Verve Stamps are not required, but if you've got 'em we would  LOVE to see ‘em!
2. For another chance to win, be sure to give the Divas a little shout-out in the comments section as we share our April Showers Bring May Flowers creations. One lucky commenter will win the Verve stamp set of his or her choosing!  Winners will be announced on Monday, May 9th right here on the Verve blog.

Now it's YOUR turn!  We DARE you to show us your creations!

April After Party!

Welcome to the April After Party!  The Monday after each release, we will share all the latest sale info and some of our favorite Diva creations using the newly released stamps! 

Spring has sprung here at Verve!  The April release is bursting with beautiful blossoms, elegant leaves, and sentiments galore!  Right now through the end of April, you can save 15% when you purchase the April 2011 Stamp Collection!

And now, prepare yourselves for eye-popping inspiration as we share our favorite projects made with the newly released stamps and dies...

Created by Amber Hight, using Proverbs 16:9 Plain Jane, Swirling Hearts, and the Charming Oval die.

Created by Amy Sheffer, using Happy Phrases and the Charming Oval Die set.

Created by Andrea Ewen, using Proverbs 16:9 Plain Jane, Bloom & Grow, Elegant Leaves Die, Floral Circles Die set, & the Classy Label Die.

Created by Charmaine Ikach, using Happy Phrases and the Charming Banner Die set.

Created by Jackie Pedro, using Bloom & Grow, Love Deepens, Elegant Leaves Die, & the Floral Circles Die set.

Created by Julee Tilman, using Bloom & Grow and the Elegant Leaves Die.

Created by Laurie Schmidlin, using Bloom & Grow, Elegant Leaves Die, and the Floral Circles Die set.

Created by Maureen Plut, using Hope Blooms and the Floral Circles Die set.

Created by Sankari Wegman, using Boom & Grow, Elegant Leaves Die, and the Jotted Heart Die.

Created by Teresa Kline, using Hope Blooms.

Created by Tosha Leyendekker, using Love Deepens and the Floral Circles Die set.

We sure hope you have enjoyed seeing some of our favorites!  We would love to hear what were some of your favorite products from this release! 

Want a chance to win some shiny new Verve?  Participants that enter all of the April Viva la Verve Challenges will be entered to win the ENTIRE next release!