Happy as a Pig in Mud

Hi everyone,

It's challenge time with my friends over on the CCEE Stampers challenge blog. As I am the challenge hostess for April, I am continuing to issue the challenges.

Apparently today is National Librarian Day, so for our challenge this week we are using a book as our inspiration either Children's or Adult.

I must confess that I cheated a little for this challenge as I created my card first and then searched for a children's book that might fit the theme as I so wanted to play with Karen Burniston's fun new Virgil the Pig die. I found a couple of books that would work with this theme although now were actually in a bath... Hogwash! by Karma Wilson and Pigs in the Mud in the Middle of the Rud by Lynn Plourde. You can see the later book read by the author on Youtube here if you are interested. 

As I am sure you are aware, Pigs love mud so when I saw this cute pig die I had vision of him in a bath of mud. I had to wait a while to actually get to me as I had to wait for the dies to arrive!

This was a fun card to create and uses quite a number of Karen Burniston's dies ... I kind of went overboard LOL! To start of we have Virgil the Pig and I needed to put him in the bath from the Bath Pop Stand Card set. (for Virgil, I die cut another set of legs which I cut off and added to the bath, so it looks like Virgil has his feet out of the bath, I am not sure if a pig could actually get in the position mine is ... but it made it look more interesting so I went with it) I die cut the bubbles from brown card so they looked like mud. I added some mud splatters to Virgil, the bath and the background of the card using the small hay from the new Hay There Pop Stand Card set; the dripping honey from Honey the Bear and the lily pad from Hoppy the Frog. I added the bath to my card base which is the Lorna Label Pop Up Card.

I added the word "HAPPY" to the top of my card using the Elizabeth Craft Designs Alphabet 1 Caps set which I mounted to the fishtail banner from the Lots of Pops Pop Up Card set. I added the flag poles also from this set to each side of the card (I extended the bottom of the flag poles so they would work with the height of the banner. 

At the bottom panel of my card I added the sentiment "as a Pig in Mud" which was computer generated. Of course I had to add mud splatters to this label too ;).

Here is a side on view of the inside of my card.

For the front of my card I used the Outdoor Edges along the bottom of my card to which I stamped the sentiment "Got mud?" I thought this worked well with what was happening on the inside of my card. Unfortunately the company who made this set is no longer in business.

I added the Barn which was created using the new Barn Pop Stand Card die set. The fun thing about the Pop Stand Card dies is that Karen created these to be stand alone dies that come with the optional Pop Stand Card die ... so you can make Pop Stand cards but you can also just use them for normal cards etc too. And finally I added a much cleaner Virgil the Pig. 

Here is another photo of the front of my card, this time with the Barn doors open. I love that you can make these doors open and close. Once the doors open it reveals a birthday greeting which is from Karen's new Farm Greetings Clear Stamp set also being released soon.

Wow I think I counted at least 9 dies that I used for this card that is if I didn't forget any!

Don't forget to check out the CCEE Stampers blog (goes live 12 AM EST) to see the rest of the creations the CCEE Stampers created this week. You can also see more details of their creations on their individual blogs:

• Amber Hillman
• Anne Harmon
• Joanne Grzelak
• Liz Williams
• Lois Bak
• Lynn McAuley
• Maryann Einam
• Sabrina Friel
• Vicky Gould

Stamps: Farm Greetings Clear Stamps - Elizabeth Craft Designs; Oh Crop - There She Goes

Paper: White; Pink; Brown; Red; Gold;  Fair Skies DP - Farmhouse Paper Company; Fiddlesticks DP - My Minds Eye

Dies: Virgil the Pig; Lorna Label Pop Up; Bath Pop StandCard ; Honey the Bear; Hoppy the Frog; Lots of Pops; Barn Pop Stand Card; Hay There Pop Stand Card; Outdoor Edges - designed by Karen Burniston for Elizabeth Craft Designs

Other: Black Ink; Hemp Cord; Elizabeth Craft Designs Transparent Double Sided Tape 64mm; Foam Tape