Stampin’ Up! A Grateful Bunch of Swirly Birds for the Happy Stampers Blog Hop

Mornin’, y’all –  welcome to another edition of the Happy Stampers Blog Hop.  I hope you’ll settle back and spend a little time checking out all the projects we ladies-who-hop have built for you today!

We all worked on a sketch this week…

Now – this one should have given me an “aha” moment.  But my brain was blocked.  Don’t know why, exactly, but it was.  So I ended up making a card from an idea that I finally forced myself to have.

And I hated the card.  It really wasn’t awful, but…I just really didn’t like it at all!  My time was pretty limited though, so…I thought “what the heck” I’ll just use it anyway.  Here it is:

To be clear, I don’t hate everything about this card.  Just a couple of things – like the gold embossed swirly do’s.  And the way my Swirly Scribbles wavy lines end.

And folks…it just ate at me.  I couldn’t do it.  So, last night, I made this card again – but changed a few elements to make it something I hate a little less – I actually kind of like it!  Take a look-see:

Still pretty much the same card, just…tweaked a little! What do you think?  Please feel free to leave me a comment and let me know! 🙂

I started with a Very Vanilla card stock panel and, using the splotches image in the Swirly Bird stamp set, I stamped Dapper Denim and Flirty Flamingo all over the card.  For both colors, I stamped them off once before stamping the card.  I also used the little flower from Swirly Bird and stamped it in Crushed Curry.  And colored in the little center with the Dapper Denim Stampin’ Write Marker.

I used some Emerald Envy to add two of the Grateful Bunch dotted leaves images to the left side of the panel.  At the same time, I cut a bunch of Emerald Envy leaves with the large leaf die in Swirly Scribbles and stamped their coordinating “vein” image in Emerald Envy.  I used Multi-Purpose Liquid Glue to adhere them to the Grateful Bunch leaves that would be visible.

For the art element, I cut two of the Swirly Scribbles wavy line die cuts – one in Gold Foil and one in Dapper Denim.  On the blue cut, I snipped it so that I only had about three strips left.  For both of them, I snipped “banner” ends on them – just to lighten it up a little.  Then I used Multi-Purpose Liquid Glue to adhere them to the card stock panel.  I trimmed the excess with my Paper Snips to get a nice straight edge and SNAILd the panel to a Dapper Denim card stock mat.

The central art is a combination of Swirly Scribbles die cuts and a fussy cut flower from Grateful Bunch.  I cut the Scribbles in Dapper Denim and Gold Foil.  The flower, I stamped in Dapper Denim on Very Vanilla and then fussy cut that dude right out.  And gave his petals a little curl!  I adhered them in a little stack with more Liquid Glue.

Mr. Bird  – from Swirly Bird – I stamped in Flirty Flamingo on Very Vanilla and fussy cut his little self out.  I made him a little “nest” of Gold Metallic thread by sticking a few Glue Dots on the flower and making lots of little loops with the thread.  Then I popped the Flirty-Flamingo-Flyer right over the top with some little bits of Stampin’ Dimensional. 🙂

The final piece is the sentiment – from Thoughtful Banners.  I stamped the frame image in Flirty Flamingo and added the sentiment in Dapper Denim.  Since I haven’t been able to buy the Duet Banner Punch yet (1 June!!) I fussy cut it and popped it on with Stampin’ Dimensional.  And that was it for the card front!

On the inside, I repeated the Emerald Envy Grateful Bunch leaves and the Crushed Curry/Dapper Denim Swirly Bird flowers….

…SNAILd it to a Dapper Denim mat and then into my Flirty Flamingo card base.  I popped the card front on with Stampin’ Dimensionals and the card was done.

The Very Vanilla Medium Envelope got a reprise of the Emerald Envy Grateful Bunch leaves and Crushed Curry/Dapper Denim Swirly Bird flowers on the front….

…and I made a whole bunch of little Swirly Bird flowers on the inside of the flap, too.

Et Voila!  It took me a couple of tries, but…I finally got a card I could live with!  It’s kind of growing on me and it’s for darned sure cheery as all get out, huh!? 😉  Hope that you like it…

Now that you’ve seen my card, please take a little time to visit all the Happy Stampers Team blogs today!

If you click on the Next Blog button, you’ll go right to Jari Francis’ page.  And you can just click on the names below to go direct to all the blogs!

Sandi MacIver

Amy Koenders

Shelagh Freemantle

Mary Deatherage – YOU ARE HERE!

Jari Francis

Kristi Gray

Heather Wright-Porto

Have fun on the Hop!

TTFN

Mary

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