Merriest Wishes with Chickadee

Our Daily Bread Designs' current challenge at their blog is "Anything Goes with ODBD Stamps." Since I'm in Christmas card mode now, I decided to do a holiday card. I had already stamped this chickadee and cut it with the coordinating die some time ago, and for some reason had never used it. So it's just been sitting on my desk for several weeks. I decided a Christmas card would be the perfect use for it!

I based my design on Operation Write Home's Sketch #200:

Except for adding 2 more buttons (in addition to the round embellishment in the sketch) to create a visual triangle, I basically made no alterations.

I had not colored the chickadee yet, and wasn't sure what colors to use and where. So I googled chickadee images, and came up with a couple. I printed those off, and used them as reference. Basically, all the coloring I did on the bird itself was the beige areas of his feathers and some black on his claws. I also colored the branch and berries. I used watercolor pencils and my water brush to do all the coloring.

I chose 3 patterned papers from the "Rejoice" 6x6" pad by Iron Orchid Designs. I cut them to the sizes indicated in the sketch, and matted all the pieces with green cardstock. I glued the chickadee to the red patterned paper. I liked the tone-on-tone pattern, because it gives it a bit of visual texture without distracting from the focal image.

I stamped the greeting from this Hero Arts set on a piece of cream cardstock with Versafine Onyx Black ink. After letting that dry a little (it's a pigment ink, and takes a few minutes to dry), I glued the greeting panel to another piece of green cardstock. I adhered that in place on the card front.

I chose 3 brown buttons from my stash--a light, medium, & dark shade. I decided where to place them, and poked holes through the card front. I then stitched the buttons on with green embroidery floss. Finally, I adhered the completed card front to a white A2 card base.

I'm also entering this card in the "Anything Goes" category of the Hero Arts Holiday Challenge.