Mr Cardmaker Takes Flight with Picket Fence Studios

Well, I've definitely caught the slimline card bug. I love having more space to play with, and layout options certainly increase with a slimline card.

I also have a big thing for birds. We live in Florida, and we have a small pond behind us that backs into a nature preserve, so the plethora of birds we get to see every day is amazing. I also have a good number of ceramic birds throughout my house, because I can't seem to get enough.

Picket Fence Studios asked me to guest design for them for this month's release, and I was so happy when I saw the Songbirds stamp set! 

I made this--

To start, I used washi tape to mask off stripes on a panel of 80# cardstock. This is just about as easy as it comes, and you can easily eyeball the placement of the tape. Working on a diagonal relieves the need for perfectly straight lines, too. I also decided to mask an area where my sentiment would ultimately land with a diecut I had on my desk. I ink blended several Distress Oxide inks together, sprayed the panel with water and splattered some ink on it to give it some texture (and disguise any awkward blend points) and allowed it to dry.

Once I gently removed the washi tape from the VERY dry panel (otherwise, it almost ALWAYS will tear), I decided where my birds needed to be in my design, and diecut windows for them with various sizes of circle dies. I also blended some ink into the sentiment area I had previously masked, using the mask for shadow, and the negative to add color to the banner. I then stamped my sentiment in both blue and versamark, and clear heat embossed it.

On my card front, because I'm crazy this way, I marked where my birds needed to land, and carefully ink blended and spattered these areas. If you notice the bottom bird, I actually masked a border to line up with where my striped panel would land. I then stamped my birds, and did some easy coloring with colored pencils.

It was then merely left to the mounting of the striped panel, which I did with foam tape. A few clear sequins, and it's done!

For my second card, I decided to do a holiday card. My grandmother always had birds on her Christmas tree, and I've always had one or two in my tree because of it. I thought these birds would make pretty ornaments, so...

I made this--

 I embossed a panel of cardstock with an embossing folder from my stash. Now, using an embossing folder on a panel for a slimline card can be tricky, but I was careful with my placement so there'd be no overlap, and in the very few imperfect places that came out, I was easily able to hide things under ornaments.

The ornaments were cut using some Spellbinders dies that have been in my stash for ages. They have a vintage-y feel to them, and I like how they work here. 

Birds and feathers were heat embossed, both in gold and with clear over red ink, and I was able to get a tiny sentiment from the stamp set onto one of the ornaments. It's not a Christmas sentiment, but I can't imagine anyone would not realize the theme here...

To decorate the ornaments even further, I used a Versamark pen to draw on some details and dots, and heat embossed them in gold. Never too much sparkle at Christmas, I say!

The only tricky/tedious thing for me was the tying and securing of the gold thread that I used to "hang" the ornaments. It was a bit fiddly, but I succeeded at the end, and I mounted everything at various heights with liquid glue and foam tape. To fill in any bare spots, I added some dots of gold Nuvo drops.

I'm happy to have another card to add to my very slowly growing collection of holiday cards for this year.

I have another card with that sweet little chickadee on it, but it also uses another new stamp set that I will show you next time, so stay tuned! You'll be buggy about it!

Be sure to stop by the Picket Fence Studios website and see the Songbirds stamp set and ALL the new release, available now!

Thanks for stopping by!

All Best--

Richard