Crazy Bird Birthday card

This is the card I was working on yesterday, inspired by something I'd seen in a crafting video. Can't remember whose it was, I've watched so many lately! It was the die cutting of a word, and placing a coloured paper behind it that had got my attention.

This one used a piece of the Brushos test pieces behind the 'Birthday' cut out.
 One thing I know now I need is a proper magnetic plate for holding the letters, and I've ordered one from Amazon. It's intended for the Spellbinders Wizard, but in one review, the person uses it in her Cuttlebug, and the size looks right, (5x7) so I know it'll work in both machines. Way cheaper than the Sizzix one, and that will not go through a 'bug.
 I did find a work around, but it's not perfect- that 'B' looks a little wibbly to me.

This was my work- around. The X Cut alpha set came with a magnetic storage sheet, so I drew some lines on it to line the letters up with, using a Sharpie permanent fine tip (by the way, all the Sharpies are on a special at Tesco at the moment, lol). I placed it on top of my steel shim, to give it a bit more stability. It does hold the piece in place, but not as firmly as you would really like. Especially when you are trying to find the right shimming to get clean cuts.
So after a bit of faffing about, trying to figure how I needed to place the card to get the word in the right place and orientation, I finally had the start of my card front.

 Tip here, be careful not to lose any of the filler bits to the letters B,R,D & A- you will need them later on.

Next step was to trim down a piece of one of the Brusho backgrounds, which was attached behind the cut out word with DST.

Now you can see why you need the little waste bits- to fill in your word.






I knew I wanted balloons, but was pretty sure I'd never bought a balloon stamp- so, on the off chance, I looked amongst the 'freebie' stamps you get with magazines- lo and behold, a balloon stamp! I stamped it onto the remaining piece of Brusho background, and cut out just the balloons. To give them a little shine, I added some Glossy Accents, just a drop, and smoothed it over with my finger.
 Put them aside to dry, and turned to the Crazy Birds.

Stamped him in Memento Tuxedo Black, onto one of the scraps from when I was trying to get the word orientation right.
Before I started colouring him, I used some Masking Fluid on his eyes, so they would stay white.







I applied Distress Inks, with finger daubers, my home made ones, to colour him.







 Here are the various pads I used-the Squeezed Lemonade for his tummy, and Fossilized Amber & Wild Honey on his beak. Mermaid Lagoon on his body, then Faded Jeans over that on his wings, and the edges of his body.

Now, to die cut him. I added some low tack tape to hold the die in place, but was pleasantly surprised at how easy this one was to line up.

Die cut, and only a tiny little bit of white around his beak, which I solved by going all round the edge with a black marker. Even the legs cut out well, so far I'm impressed with these dies.







 Now I decided to add the word 'Happy' to the front, so I cut the letters from the same card as the card front, and stuck them down with Pinflair Glue Gel, for a 'white on white' look.
 I stamped the strings from the balloons onto the card front- I don't trust my drawing!-  so they'd look like he was holding them in his beak, then stuck the balloons on top, with Pinflair again, then stuck my bird down,balancing him on top of the 'Happy', and having removed the Masking Fluid first.
I shortened the height of the card front, and matted it onto a dark blue piece of cardstock, as blue seemed to be the dominant colour on the images.

 I wanted a top fold card for this, but as an A4 sheet isn't big enough to fold this way, I cut two pieces of white pearl card, the one about 1/2" longer than the other.

The longer one was scored across the top, then that flap folded over, and DST added on the back.








The shorter piece placed under the fold, and stuck down.

Card front added with DST, and it's done.

I used one of my Brusho pieces behind the word, but obviously you can use anything. It occurs to me that this would be a good way of using those sheets of backing papers that are always left in the pack because we don't like them for whatever reason. You only see a small portion of the design done like this, and you can use different words- Sorry,( a belated birthday card), Love, Friend,Hi, Hello, and so on and so on.
 I can see a number of these being made over the next few days- they are a lot quicker than this long post implies, lol, and perfect to send to almost anyone, male or female.