Beautiful Bird

Another beautiful day here on the westcoast.  The sun is shining, it's fairly warm and there's a nice breeze - the perfect spring day.  I'm heading out to my greenhouse to pot up the flowers I bought yesterday.  But before heading outside, I wanted to participate in today's "Ways To Use It" challenge at SCS (WT374 - For the birds!!).  I don't make many cards with birds ... don't know why ... just don't.  So it was a little bit of a challenge for me.  I used a stamp set that I bought around Christmas time last year.  It's actually a Christmas stamp set called "Beautiful Season" and I used just the bird from the set (hence the name of today's card - Beautiful Bird).  I wasn't implying that my bird was beautiful, just that's the name of the stamp :)

I'm pretty happy with how the bird turned out, but not sure that it shows up enough on the background I've chosen.  I used the plaid paper that was still sitting on my work table from yesterday - I just love this DP ... but the bird seems to get a little lost.  I tried to make him stand out more by adding depth to the leaves he's sitting on and also popping him up with dimensionals.  Hope you like.

"Beautiful Bird"

Stamps:  Beautiful Season, Just Believe - sentiment (SU!)
Paper:  Chocolate Chip, Confetti Cream, watercolor paper (SU!); Generations DP (Simple Stories)
Ink:  StazOn Black, Sahara Sand, River Rock, Always Artichoke (SU!)
Accessories & Tools:  Big Shot, Blender pen, Little Leaves die-cut (Sizzix), mat pack, stylus, Square Lattice embossing folder (Sizzix), Modern Label punch, Word Window punch, pewter brads, glue, adhesives, sticky strips, and dimensionals

I stamped the bird onto watercolor paper and colored with Stampin' Write markers and a blender pen and then cut it out.  I ran the Little Leaves die-cut through my Big Shot twice with Always Artichoke cardstock.  I then sponged more Always Artichoke ink over the leaves and used my mat pack and stylus to form the leaves, pushing the stylus along the center of each leaf (to create a "vein" and rounding the leaves).

I cut a small piece of Confetti Cream cardstock, sponged with Always Artichoke ink, embossed with the square lattice folder and then framed with Chocolate Chip cardstock.  I used a scrap of the same paper for the sentiment, also sponged the edges and mounted onto a Chocolate Chip modern label, adding a pewter brad at each end.

I mounted all the pieces as shown in the photo, popping up the main panel and bird on dimensionals to add depth.

For the inside, I used a Confetti Cream panel with a small strip of Chocolate Chip-framed plaid at the bottom.