Hi from a Lil' Birdie

Another fun installment is being hosted at the Embellish Magazine Blog! And some changes to the DT are occurring. This will be the last challenge where we get to be inspired by Maile Belle's work on Embellish. It's really bitter sweet, since I really enjoy seeing her work here every other week.

However, things can't remain the same, if we want to allow for growth. Right? This opportunity allows for new talent to be spotlighted and Ashley has a great eye for picking the right gals! Cristina K has joined the team and I remember seeing many of her creations at the Embellish challenges - either as a winning design or a "What's Hot" spotlight. So I feel so lucky to be able to stalk her work now on a bi-weekly basis.

So I would like to dedicate this card's creation to Maile Belle.

This week I whipped my rather dusty Inkadinkado stamps out, that I used for a Christmas project back in 2009. The colors came together pretty quickly for me, especially cause I had enough foresight to purchase Mister Huey in a beautiful blue hue (Lunchtray). No questions asked - it had to fit in there somehow! I also had a toothbrush box (saved from a trip to Bangalore in 2008 - one can never have enough toothbrushes for cleaning or crafting!) made out of corrugated material. I have always found the texture fascinating and wanted to do something with it. Here is the card in a nutshell:


Stamps: (Birds Galore) Inkadinkado
Paper: (Paper Basics Card Stock - Vintage Cream) Papertrey Ink; (Basic Card Stock - Cream) Recollections; (Offbeat) Basic Grey
Ink: (Tea Dye Duo - Chai) Papertrey Ink
Embellishments: (Perfect Pearls - Perfect Bronze, Perfect Copper, Distressed Inks - Vintage Photo) Ranger; (Steel Dies - Cloud 1 & 2 Die Collection; ) Papertrey Ink; (Mister Huey - Lunchtray) Studio Calico; (Glitter Stickers - Bronze) K&Company; (recycled corrugated box for toothbrush)

I initially had this idea of using the corrugated cardboard as tree bark, and started inking it up with Vintage Photo. I liked the distressed look on the edged and went to emphasize the uneven edges with my finger nail. (Super cool technique I learned from watching the talented Ashley in one of her Wednesday Tutorials.) The sky was created by playing with Mister Huey and I went for an uneven coverage - heavier on the left, lighter on the right.



I found a fun scrap piece of Basic Grey paper and knew I wanted to create some fun clouds with the pattern paper. Since I wanted to give the clouds some dimensions I swabbed some edges with my Papertrey Chai cube. This also blended the blue in better for the entire card's design - which was becoming more and more vintage-y. My bird was "colored" using Ranger Perfect Pearls. It has a gorgeous Copper and Bronze finish that shimmers in real life. The photo capture doesn't do it justice.



After playing around with some placement I opted to stick two letters from my leftover alpha stickers - that were conveniently available in the awesome shade of brown! Perfect for this challenge.

I was pleasantly pleased with this card, since it fell outside of my comfort zone. And I loads of fun creating this one! Will you be playing along?