Paper Carousel and a Dancing Hippo

These are my entries for Melanie's Guest Designer contest. First is the carousel. I have had this idea in my head for awhile now and I was finally able to make it happen since Melanie has created quite a collection of great animal stamps now. Once again I waited way to long to start it so I worked like crazy the last two days to get it done. I finished it just in time though.
I started with a search for something that would make it really move. Music boxes came to mind so I started searching for music box parts. My search lead me to a man name Tony in California who sells them. He put together a platform with carousel music for me to use as a base. I found a template for the middle column and top edging and traced the outline of the patterns on white marker paper and cut them out, then I airbrushed those pieces. After that I created the design for the column and edging with stamps from The Angel Company and freehand then I colored the finished design in with my Copics. I used my Cuttlebug and oval dies to cut mirror images from silver Shimmer Sheetz. I did the same thing with red cardstock for the mirror borders. I used red plastic plates for the top and bottom of the carousel punching holes in both plates to put the straws that I covered with ribbon in. I colored all the animals with Copics and cut them out then attached them to the straws. I used stickles for decoration on the bottom of the plates, some of the animals, and the edging. I finished it off with ribbon tied onto another straw on the top. Below is a video that shows the finished carousel in motion.





This is the dancing hippo card. I have had the idea of a dancing hippo for awhile now too. It was suppose to be a tilt card originally but I couldn't get it to tilt so I just glued the back part of the hippo on to the cardstock to make it look like she was dancing thru the tulips. As you can see she is wearing a tutu too. The background is a past TJ technqiue called Magic Pattern from the Feb/March newsletter.
Finished card is 41/4x41/4.

Hopefully these projects are enough to give me the opportunity to be Melanie's guest designer. In the meantime I will working on finishing up my PTI guest start stamper entries and other design team obligations this month.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a great night.