Tuesday 2 July 2013

Sweet Little Robin

Morning All,

... from a damp and dull part of Scotland everyone. It's quite pleasant though - I'm not adapted to extremes of temperature.

The card I'm sharing with you today features one of my favourite garden birds, the cheeky wee robin. I couldn't wait to ink up the stamp,  from a very new stamp designer and producer, Caroline at 3 Cavaliers, as soon as the postie popped it through the letterbox yesterday.

Instead of a list of materials used, I thought I'd give you a 'how I made this' run down, just for a change.

 - I raided my stash to make this card beginning with a 6" square die-cut edged card for the base. 

 - A square of smooth brown card, from the snippet box, was cut to fit the front. 

 - The next layer is cut from Roses in Harmony paper, Hot of The Press (HOTP), which came free with Scrapbook magazine - slightly smaller, by about 1/4", all round so that it is framed by the brown card.

 - From the strip of brown card that was leftover after cutting the base layer, a 1" belly band was cut and edge-punched using Martha Stewart's arches punch. A decorative strip was cut from one of the sheets of Roses in Harmony paper and attached to the band leaving the edge showing. Finally, a length of the green Offray ribbon was stretched over the band which was then attached to the base layers.

 - From another sheet of the HOTP paper, came the label for the topper and the tiny tag and a butterfly.

 - The robin was stamped, with Versafine Vintage Sepia ink, firstly on a snippet of kraft cardstock and then on to the label in such a way that the robin's head extends over the top of the label. Then the robin on kraft was fussy cut before adhering to the label, as in decoupage. 

 - After that it was just a matter of adding all the little embellishments. The pink butterflies were punched out of yet another snippet of card and then given the stickle treatment - love that stuff for adding a tiny bit of bling. With great difficulty, I managed to make a double bow from the Offray ribbon (bought for a song at a car boot sale) and attached it with the tiny tag to the left of the topper. The final finishing touch is the My Mind's Eye Winter Wonderland enamel dots - my latest embellishment must-have, but so difficult to find in the UK ... these were purchases from Amazon!


I think I'll be popping over to the Pixie's Crafty Snippets Playground to participate in Miss Di's weekly challenge, i.e. to use up our snippets in whatever we create. Happily, I managed to incorporate a few in this card.

I hope you like the little robin as much as I do and that you will pop over to Caroline's blog. This is her first steps into the crafty world of stamp production so I'm sure she will appreciate all the encouragement you can give her. She also makes lovely cards.

Right, I'm off to have some soup for lunch. Mouth still sore but rapidly improving, thanks to all the helpful advice received from all you knowledgeable peeps. I'm now armed with Anbesol, Janet, and Papaya juice, Julia - though I draw the line at salt washes, Angie :) The Papaya juice was difficult to find but it's so soothing and very effective ... oh, and it's tasty too. All-in-all, I'm now feeling perkier - and one beneficial side-affect is that I've lost 2lbs in weight :))

Take care everyone and happy crafting,

9 comments:

Diane said...

Lovely design, very fun colors, frame and of course your bird.

Regards diane

Di said...

Oh Elizabeth, this is absolutely STUNNING! Love the robin and all the extras you used make it a perfect card. I'm off to check the link.

I have no idea where the pale green card I used today came from. To be honest, it's not a colour I'd use much and I found I have eight A4 sheets goodness knows why, can only think my local crafting friend might have given me some- so can I please sent you some of them as you love it so much? Am off to a funeral tomorrow morning and not back until Thursday but can post on Friday or Saturday once I surface - it's only a stamp!! :) Pleeeeeeease?

Hugs, Di xx

Rita said...

What a beautiful card Elizabeth. I'm just back from Glasgow Royal with my friend Jan who had an mri scan at nine o,clock this morning. It's been along day. Hugs Rita xxx

Sandra H said...

This is beautiful Elizabeth and what a lovely stamp too! gorgeous B/P's and layout xx

Craftychris said...

Absolutely gorgeous card! I love the layout and the little robin is so cute! Will hop over and have a look at Caroline's blog xx

Cathy said...

Gorgeous card Elizabeth, love all the pretty layers and the little bird is lovely, he's so detailed :) Cathy x

Marie-Louise said...

Gorgeous card Elizabeth. I do hope that your mouth ulcers clear up soon.

coops said...

so stunning Elizabeth.beautiful bird and I love your colours and design :D

xx coops xx

scrappymo! said...

Wonderful card...that is a very pretty bird and I love how you have placed him on the diecut.
The colours and DP are very pretty too!