Happy Birthday Birds

The current challenge at A Blog Named Hero is to create a project inspired by another crafter. I recently saw an inside tunnel card tutorial at Jennifer McGuire's YouTube channel & blog, and decided to make one, inspired by her design, for my mom's upcoming birthday.

I stamped, colored, & die cut several birds from Hero Arts' "Better Together" stamp & die set, that they created for Ellen Hutson's United We Flourish project. Except for the one that looks like a parrot, which I included on the inside of the card, I don't know that any of the birds looks like a real bird. So I just colored them in bright colors as I saw fit. :)

Inside of card

I used 3 dies from Simon Says Stamp's "Stitched Rectangles" set to cut the windows for the inside panels of the card. I had to deviate from Jennifer's measurements a bit, since I wanted to create 2 inside frames/layers, rather than the single one that she demonstrated. I cut & scored those panels at the same measurements she gave, but in the end, trimmed the flaps on either side down to 1/8" wide, rather than 1/4". Thankfully, I had double-sided tape narrow enough to work!

I stenciled the clouds with My Favorite Things' "Mini Cloud Edges" stencil. On the first go-around, I inadvertently stenciled the clouds on the inside back panel upside-down. I didn't realize this until I had assembled the card, though. So I cut another panel, slightly smaller than the background, stenciled it, and adhered it inside the card. I also took the largest panel I'd die cut from the inside of the front-most frame, masked off outside the stitching lines around the edges, and stenciled clouds on that as well.

For the front of the card, I die cut a mat from Bazzill Whirlypop cardstock with the largest of Lawn Fawn's "Small Stitched Rectangle" dies, and adhered my stenciled cloud panel to that. I mounted that onto the front of my card base. I die cut the "Birthday" using a Winnie & Walter die from red foil cardstock that I'd backed with Stick It adhesive. I lightly adhered that to my stenciled panel. I also stamped "happy" from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps' "All Wrapped Up" onto a strip of white cardstock, and heat embossed it with Wow White Pearl embossing powder. I cut that into a small banner, & inked it with Barn Door Distress ink. After I buffed off the ink from the embossing, I glued it to my panel, nestling it between the "b" & "r," then burnished the "birthday" to adhere it securely. Finally, I glued down 3 of the birds from "Better Together."

I used glue dots to adhere the rest of the birds, 2 branches, & the birdhouse to the inside of my card. I added a little liquid glue in a couple of spots, like where the parrot's head overlapped the upper part of the frame. Those areas were just too small for glue dots, which would have stuck the panels together. But I needed to adhere them, to provide more stability to the images. And that finished this card. It was a bit tricky, but I was able to follow Jennifer's tutorial all right.

I'm also entering this card in the Dies R Us Challenge #130: "Anything Goes with Dies Carried at the Dies R Us Store" (used Hero Arts & Lawn Fawn).