"Yellow and Blue Make Green!"

Was that from a Ziploc commercial?? Anyway, had to pull out some of my favorite patterned papers in some of my favorite baby colors (SU! hostess DP pack, Wild Wasbabi striped ribbon) to piece this little card which uses FIVE (of the 50!!)* new stamps from "Hip Hop Accessories": a ginormous add-on set (that is great by itself!) for your Just So Hippy (from which I used the larger hippo here) and Just So Hoppy stamps! Now I a have baby card I could send out for a boy or girl!

The hippos (which I used a white gel pen on to fill in their eyes, teeth, and toes) are mounted on dimensionals on top of a classic Nestabilites Rectangle. I cut the rattle in two pieces and mounted each piece on either side of the hippo tail to make it look like it was behind it. :) I took a cue from my focal point and decided three strips of DP for the background would be perfect to represent eahc of their colors, and to balance the colors put the apricot on the left , opposite of the apricot hippo, and the wasabi in the middle, kind of symbolic of their "union". ;) (Do I over think these things??)

VERY IMPORTANT TIP for when your new "Hip Hop" set arrives, this will save you a lot of time: (You've probably never had this many on a sheet**, and you don't want to lose track of a single image or greeting! )

1. Before cutting your rubber, peel off the paper backing.

2. Lay the rubber on the desk face up and go over it with our waterproof ink pad, inking every image.

3. Press the glossy side of the paper backing(which you will later be sticking your stamp onto) down on the inked rubber, smoothing over it to pick up every image and remove. (or use a plain sheet of paper if you plan on keeping this stamps on an acrylic stand) Even with a fast drying ink this surface may resist it a little so blot a few times with scratch paper. It's okay if it smudges, this is just going to be guide for where to put all your stamps!

4. Now you're ready to start cutting away (while you eat your Gina K "thank you" m&m's!) Each and every stamp has a perfect spot mapped out on your sheet, no worrying about trying to figure out where they should all go, it's already done for you. (I had a pic of this but accidentally deleted it, sorry!)

I'm going to start doing this with all my new stamps that arrive, so much easier to stamp it once and make my own image sheet instead of trying to do it with all the cut pieces. Even with a sheet that doesn't have many images and plenty of room to make them fit, it's great to see at a glance which stamp I need to locate on my messy desk and put back where it belongs! I hope this helps you get organized and ready to start playing with your new stamps that much faster! :)

Happy Earth Day! Go recycle some paper or rubber! ;)

*baby hippo, rattle, "to the hippest", "new", "parents"! There is actually room in between the words on "to the hippest" for you to cut this sentiment apart and use them separately if you wish (which makes 52 stamps!) or you can leave them together and just ink up the words you want :)

**I asked Gina if I was crazy to put so many stamps in one set! (I'm not sure I ever heard back, but she probably was thinking,"Crazy, YES, but not for that reason!" LOL!) For the record, though, I had to laugh when I read in Gina K's blog that I had "married the hippies and hoppies and now they've all had babies!" I wasn't over planning animal weddings or anything!! But now that she said that I feel somewhat compelled to show you all the couples! ;)