Bunnies and Blossoms for kids Blog Hop

     Welcome to the bunnies and blossoms blog hop for special needs children. Between yesterday and today 30+ fantastic paper crafters have come together to create spring themed banners. We will then donate these banners to Ellen (cardmonkey) Jarvis who works as the admissions coordinator at Pediatric Specialty Care (P.S.C.) in P.A.  PSC is a long-term care facility for special needs children who are medically-fragile and/or technologically-dependent. The babies, children and youths at PSC range in age from birth to 21, and are admitted from all over the U.S.
     Some are infants, born prematurely and before their lungs have had a chance to mature. Others have serious birth defects, illnesses or injuries from accidents that cause them to need tender loving care in a home-like environment--many for their lifetimes.

     A few months back I saw a post for a love bug  banner hop and decided to check it out. It was fantastic and I loved that the banners were being donated to these children. So much so that when I saw the call for the spring/Easter hop I jumped at the chance and signed up. I know the banners will give them joy which will be like sunshine to their families and staff at the centre. It's like bringing spring time and sunshine to those that can't go to it. :) I worked as a developmental support worker before my accident, and know that small gestures mean so much to these kids and their families. 

If you have happened upon my blog today by chance and would love to hop, or are already hopping, this is the line up for today.  Please make sure you start at Ellen Cardmonkey's blog :) She has an awesome prize for one lucky hopper and you don't want to miss out on your chances to win :) 

 Ellen ♥ CardMonkey - http://cardmonkey-business.blogspot.com/

Ashley - http://theglamoroussideofscrapping.blogspot.com/

Pam - http://pammejo-scrapbookflair.blogspot.com/

Rachelle - http://creationsbyrachelle.blogspot.com/

Jessica Esch- http://chick-n-scrap.blogspot.com/

Nancie ~ http://alittlepieceofmebynancie.blogspot.com/

Tami ~ http://tamboscreations.blogspot.com/

Susan E Bermudez - http://susanascorner.blogspot.com/

Beckie - http://justbcreativecrazy.blogspot.com

Jamie M. http://craftygirl21.blogspot.com/

Vicki Wilson http://scrapbookingcreationsbyvicki.blogspot.com/

Robin - http://scrapandchat.blogspot.com/

Jennifer - http://craftycardgallery.blogspot.com/

Debbie T. - http://debbiescrafttime.blogspot.com/

Lisa T. - http://bitbythecricutbug.blogspot.com/<< you came from here

Cindy Potentier. -  http://toolsofacropingqueen.blogspot.com/<<mine :)

Yvette ~ http://gammascreativecorner.blogspot.com/<<next banner

Yay.... it's finally time to share my very first banner with you, I'm so happy with how it turned out and I hope the kids will like it as well ....warning.....pic/dialogue  heavy :) LOL  All the bunnies and chicks are dies designed by Peachy Keen and made by The Scrapping Cottage, with Peachy Keen face stamps to use with each. This is an awesome set and so versatile. I had fun playing with them and embellishing them either the same or differently than the pic of them on their pkging. :)

I used a 5" doily, two Big Scalloped Circles (Lg) and one Big scalloped circles (sm), as well as one Classic Circle sm spellbinders die for each segment. Each small scalloped circle was embossed with a different folder.

                                       

The doily was glued between the two largest scalloped circles, the smaller ones were glued together and then pop dotted on top of the larger set after they were inked and decorated with their embellishments.

I had put the grommets (hole thingys) in the wrong location so I used the second set I had on hand for the Easter banner I was planning to make but took so long to make this one I ran out of time. 

"Happy" was cut from the Easter 2010 cricut cart. I cut it out in shadow and regular then cut off the word

Easter, ran the reg cut through the xyron upside down, glittered and glued onto the shadow.

      Here I kept my "Easter Basket Bunny" as is but added tulips to the basket instead of Easter eggs. I cut the tulips with a fiskars punch twice for each flower, once in green for the leaves and stem, once for the colour of the flower, did some inking, cutting and shaping and used lots of pop dots to give dimension and to help the tulips on the sides keep their shape.

how I made the tulips 

 This little chick was kept the same as her packaging, I just cut out extra flowers for the background, and pop dotted her up. She is one of the cuties on the Shower Peepers 4X6 die :)

 This is the "Crunchin' Carrot Bunny", I replaced her carrots with the daisies I made using the 6 petal  EK Success flower punch. Love her happy little face :)

How I made the daisies

I cut the rainboot freehand from a punched flower, then traced it on another flower and cut to match. I made the back ground flowers from the flower bits from the Fiskars scalloped flower border punch. I just ran a line of tacky glue, shaped the flowers, inked the centres and set in the glue. The umbrella is popped up and the chicks head is inside it. She's so cute!!

 This bunny was way more work than the rest and so were her flowers. She is the "Paintin' Easter Bunny" die that I cut twice because I wasn't using the egg and she cuts out as only half a bunny, a foot and paw for the other that you glue in front of the egg. After cutting it twice I flipped one image over, placed them together best I could to make it look right, did a bit of trimming, cut off most of the bunnies heads leaving a bit for a pop dot, then popped a third cut using just the head on top. I glued flowers in front to cover where the bodies over lapped. The face for this bunny has really long whiskers that are actually a seperate stamp from it's face but when you add a lot of dimension it wouldn't look right with the whiskars in the back ground so I used the rabbit face from the Peachy Keen Animal Faces (sm) set for the Animal Kingdom Cricut Cart. It fits perfect :)  I made the daffodils, with two different EK Success flower punches. I will be doing a blog post later on how to make the flowers from this banner. :)

how I made the daffodils

 This lil peeper is doing the spring cleaning, she has a different stamp for her face that kind of says ewwww house work, LOL but I wanted her to look happy it's spring. The flowers were also made with the 6 petal EK Success punch,, shaped and blinged :)

 Spring was cut from the April showers cricut cart in regular and shadow. I cut off the flower that is part of the cut, ran the reg cut through the xyron and glittered before gluing to the shadow cut.  I only had a small piece of ribbon left over after making the banner spreader so I cut it in half, tied two bows and hot glued in place. I wish I had another roll of this gorgeous ribbon, I would love to have a bow between each segment.

 The next few pics are just to show some of the dimension on these segments.

 I love the umbrella, I actually cut it twice and glued a solid piece to the back of it with the pop dots in between to make it look like an actual umbrella, kinda sorta, lol it's not round but their is a space in there.

 Can see how deep the daffodils are, these were a ton of work but I think they came out so cute and well worth the time it took. Added glossy accent and stickles to lots of areas :) Face parts, flowers, etc.

Before glueing the smaller embellished sections on, I turned over the whole banner and wrote a msg to everyone :) 

     I hope you enjoyed the hop and got some inspiration along the way to make something special for your family or someone else for the up coming spring season and/or holiday :) If you have any questions or would like to let me know what you think, please leave me a comment. I love to read them and know you were here so I can pop over and visit your blog tooo :)  Thank you so much for dropping by our hop today, maybe I'll see your creation in the next hop, Ellen is always looking for more peeps in the line up :)

     I'd just like to thank Ellen for hosting and letting me be a part of it. It was a fabulous hop and I totally loved every minute I spent making my banner. It was a labour of pure love, thinking of the smiles on their little faces when they see all the brightly coloured, whimsical characters and flowers. To all the ladies in the hop, thank you for hopping by, I enjoyed checking out your banner as well and left you a lovely comment :)Have a great day every one, be crafty, be blessed!! 

Cindy  :)