Bird House Card.

  I  made this card for my sister who has just moved house.  There is quite a lot of cutting in the making of this card and it reminded me of why I don't do decoupage. I hated fussy cutting all those tiny flowers and leaves.  Fortunately the background on the DSP I cut these flowers from,  has a white background, so when it came to cutting out those pencil line branches, I cut them out leaving a white 1mm edge either side, then coloured the white edges the same colour as my background so the edges disappear when adhered to the project.

To make this card  I cut out two pentagons. One |Blue and one white. The white one is slightly smaller than the blue one.

 Using the birch background stamp and a smoky slate ink pad  I stamped the image on the white pentagon. I inked up the birch stamp again this time with Seaside spray  blue ink and stamped it on scrap paper before stamping  the white pentagon again (without re inking the stamp). This is called second generation stamping and it gives a lighter, less intense shade of the colour.

I cut the holes in both pentagons using two circle dies slightly different sizes to create a framed aperture when  the two are adhered together. Behind the aperture I glued a piece of smoky slate card stock about 2 inches square, which I had stamped using the birch stamp and smoky slate ink.

Next I cut a strip of card 3/4 inch wide by  about 8 inches long and punched the lacy scalloped edge.      I cut the strip in half and mitred it in the middle to create the roof trim.

The bird was stamped using the free as a bird stamp set.

I coloured the image with Copic markers using a googled  photo of a blue tit as a rough guide as to where to put the colours. I then cut him out. Yes , I cut off his legs.

The next step was to  arrange, assemble and adhere all the elements on a 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 sheet of DSP. 

The bird and the roof edging were attached with 1/8th of an inch thick foam strips for more dimension.

I added a post and a hand written New Home  greeting. Surprisingly,  I don't have any greeting stamps suitable for this occasion so I decided to hand write the greeting. All that's left for me to do is write my message and address the envelope and get it in the post. This one really tested my patience so I hope my sister likes it.

 

Blossoms abound

I was digging through one of my cupboards of old stamps when I came across the Blossoms Abound stamp set.  This is a long since retired set. I am not sure if it was ever in the UK catalogue. I bought this set from a lady in the USA about eight or nine years ago. I used it a lot initially, but I wasn't really happy with the results. Probably because I didn't have two purple inks that worked well enough together to look like lilac.
 Until now that is... S.U have brought out two lilac /purples that go together brilliantly.  So I have been playing with this set again today, along with the Perfectly Penned sentiment set, The Birch background stamp and the very old  En Francais background stamp Inks,.. Highland heather, Gorgeous grape. Mossy meadow, Old olive, Smokey Slate, and Grey granite.

I started by stamping the background in Grey granite with the Birch background stamp and Smokey slate with the script.

 Blossoms abound is a two step stamp set. If you're unfamiliar with these sets.  I'll explain,   the lilac blossom is made up of two stamps. The base is a less detailed stamp,  which I stamped in the lighter purple.  The second stamp has the detail and I inked up the detail stamp in the darker purple and stamped on top of the lighter purple image. It's as easy as that.
The leaves on this set are done the same way as the blossoms, although you have to stamp the stem before stamping the leaves. The stem also has the veins of the leaves and  this shows you where to stamp the leaves.

The sentiment is from the Perfectly penned stamp set and I stamped this in black Versafine.  I finished the image with some sponging to vintage it up a bit.   If you want a closer look click on one of the photos.