Monday, April 14, 2014

Happy Birdday (Birds on a Wire)


The inspiration for my card comes from Sarah Gray, who blogs at Funky Fossil Designs. You can see the card I CASEd in this post on her blog.

I happen to have the same Hero Arts "Missing You" stamp set that she used. I liked how she positioned the birds on a line, so I wanted to mimic that. And of course, the punny greeting doesn't hurt, either!

I started by creating my background. I cut a piece of white cardstock to 4.25x5.5". After masking off a small area in the lower right corner, I taped Simon Says Stamp's "Falling Stars" stencil over the cardstock. Then I smeared Liquitex gloss gel medium over the stencil, creating the star pattern on the cardstock. I set that aside overnight, just to make sure it was completely dry before I proceeded.

After the background dried, I blended Distress Inks in Chipped Sapphire, Faded Jeans, Broken China, & Tumbled Glass over it with my Mini Ink Blending Tool, going from darkest at the top to the lightest shade at the bottom. The gel medium served as a resist, so the stars remained white. I lightly wiped any excess ink off the stars with a baby wipe, and finally removed the mask.

I stamped the bird image 5 times onto watercolor paper using Ranger Archival Jet Black ink. I zapped them with my heat tool to make sure the ink was dry, then colored each bird with Inktense pencils. When they were dry, I fussy cut them, cutting off the legs. (Don't worry, I put them back later!) I then went around the edges with a black brush-tip marker to blend the white core of the paper into the black stamping outline.

I decided where I wanted to place my birds on the background, and strung pieces of hemp twine from Hemptique across the card front for them to stand on. I stamped the bird image on the front panel in each position, over the twine, so it looks like their little feet are wrapped around the line. (See, I told you I put them back!) Then I adhered the fussy-cut colored birds on top of the stamped images with foam tape. I stamped my greeting into the area I had previously masked off, and then adhered the entire panel to an A2 card base. Finally, I added a little Glossy Accents to the birds' pupils.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

A Blog Named Hero's Challenge #41: "Build a Background"
Sweet 'n Sassy Stamp's April Release Challenge: "Happy" (what could make me happier than creating with funny birds & a punny greeting?)

1 comment:

  1. OK, these cards are so cute! The second one is my favorite, those birds are adorable and the background looks great! Thanks again for playing over at ABNH!

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