Charity Bloghop (+GIVEAWAYS!)

Good morning!  I’m very excited to be a part of an unusual blog hop hosted by the fabulous Sandy Allnock!  The idea behind this hop is to bring awareness to the countless wonderful charities and causes that offer “gifts” that you can purchase in honor of a friend or family member and share how you can create a card to go with your gift.  I chose Defenders of Wildlife and I symbolically adopted a sea otter in honor of my mom (hopefully she won’t see this post before Mother’s Day!).  My donation will support the work to educate people about the need to protect sea otters and to help local communities and the fishing industry live in harmony with these animals. It will also continue efforts to protect sea otters and their habitat from the threat of oil spills.

When I was a child we lived in Monterey for a few years and my mom and I used to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium once (or twice) a week and my favorite animals were the sea otters!  I honestly can’t remember if I’ve ever actually seen baby otters riding on their mom’s bellies or if the image is just in my head from magazines (anyone else remember Zoobooks?!) and nature documentaries but that’s the iconic image in my head whenever I think of sea otters.  My mom is also a big fan of the Monterey Bay sea otters so I thought this would be a perfect Mother’s Day gift for her!

When you adopt a sea otter through Defenders of Wildlife you have an option to receive a stuffed animal with your donation.  I chose to forgo the stuffed animal in order to maximize my donation but it would be perfect for a young child!  You receive an adoption certificate, a photo of an otter, and a nice little hardcover folder to hold everything.  Your recipient will also receive a letter that explains your donation and what it will support.  I happened to have a sea otter stuffed animal that I used for a prop in my photo but it does not come with the adoption. 😉

So I decided to make a fairly simple card to go with my gift…just a little distress ink blending and a super cute pair of otters!

I stamped the otters and heart from Mama Elephant’s Otterly Adorable with copic friendly black ink and colored them with copic markers before die-cutting them with the coordinating dies.

Next I blended chipped sapphire distress ink onto a piece of distress watercolor paper and salty ocean distress ink onto another piece.  Then I flicked water onto the panels and  I used dies from the Landscape Trio to create waves.  I stamped the sentiment from Ellen Hutson’s Otterly Awesome (I’m totally loving the current otter trend!) with versamark and heat-embossed it with white embossing powder.  Finally I blended a background using shaded lilac, picked raspberry, and spun sugar distress ink.  I wanted to keep the card fairly flat so it would fit inside the folder so I used regular ATG adhesive to adhere everything together.  Much more CAS than my usual designs but I think it’s perfect for this occasion and I’m pretty sure my mom will love it!

Awesome companies are helping inspire you to hop along and leave comments on all the blogs – Altenew ($30), Lawn Fawn ($50), My Favorite Things ($25), and Ellen Hutson ($25)!  Be sure to go say thanks to them on their social media for helping get the word out about giving…and leave comments by Wednesday March 22. Winners will be randomly chosen from the comments and announced on Sandy’s blog on Thursday March 23, along with a total amount we’ve raised together!

You should have arrived from Aimes’ blog and the Ellen Hutson blog is your next stop!  I’ve included a full list of all the hop stops in case you get lost!

• Sandy Allnock  
• Lisa Stein
• Caryn Davies
• Carly Tee Minner
• May Sukyong Park
• Lisa Spangler
• Aimes Gray
• Jessica Frost-Ballas –> You are here!
• Ellen Hutson
• Julia Stainton
• Emily Midgett
• Taheerah Atchia
• Joanne Soukup
• Melissa Miller
• Libby Hickson
• May Flaum
• Cindy Lawrence

Thanks so much for visiting today and have a wonderful weekend!  If this is your first time visiting my blog I hope you’ll come back!  You can subscribe via the sidebar or visit me on instagram or youtube!  Happy hopping!
Interested in the products I used?  To make them easy for you to find, I have listed them below. (Affiliate disclosure can be found here). Your purchases help keep my blog running and I thank you for the support!)