Sunday, June 14, 2015

Hummingbird & Columbine


I usually include a greeting on the front of my cards. I don't know exactly why, except that is typical in commercial greeting cards. I've seen cards through Operation Write Home, though, that have no greeting, so I thought I'd give it a try with this one. It will hopefully make a nice addition to their "Thinking of You" category!

I used OWH's Sketch #192 for my design:


I began by printing this digital image from Fred, She Said onto a piece of 140 lb. watercolor paper. I then colored it with Inktense pencils and a damp brush. To get the colors in the columbine flower correct, I looked up images on Google. I was surprised to find that it comes in several different colors, not just yellow like the one we have. I decided to color mine in the yellow/red combination. I also made my bird a ruby-throated hummingbird.

For the background, I chose 3 patterned papers from my scrap stash. I tacked down the red & yellow gingham paper strips to a piece of green cardstock, using temporary adhesive. I then ran the whole thing through my Grand Calibur machine with the largest of Lawn Fawn's "Large Stitched Rectangle" dies, to get the stitched edge. Then I carefully peeled up my patterned paper strips, applied permanent adhesive to the backs with my ATG gun, and stuck them back down. I also cut the small piece of my third pattern and adhered that in place.

Even though the focal panel is not shown with a mat in the sketch, I felt it was a bit unfinished-looking just to stick it down. But I also didn't want anything too stark. So I adhered my panel to a piece of pale yellow cardstock, and trimmed that to leave a 1/16" mat all around. Then I adhered that in place.

I initially glued a button to the lower left corner of the focal panel, replacing the oval shape in the sketch. But I finally decided, especially for OWH purposes, it was just too bulky. So I CAREFULLY pulled it off, and replaced it with a cardstock "button" I cut with a die from this set. I did thread the "button" with green embroidery floss, which I tied in a bow, before gluing it down. I mounted the completed card front to a white A2 card base, and I was done!

I'm entering my card in Simon Says Stamp's Monday "For the Love of Plants" challenge.

4 comments:

  1. That is a perfect card for anyone! I love that pretty bird image and your coloring too. Thank you so much for joining us in the For the Love of Plants challenge over at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog this week :)

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  2. So pretty! Love that hummingbird!

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