4 Birds Birthday Wishes

This stamped image I've had knocking around for ages. Its stamped in Versafine Onyx Black, and the background was created on photopaper using Alcohol Inks. They were streaked on, using a blending tool, rather than the normal 'tapping' or 'pouncing' method.
 I cut the image down, just leaving a narrow border, and then it has sat in a drawer since, as I couldn't decide how to use it.
 Recently I bought a cardstock pad, Black Magic, which has a Black coating over different colours of cardstock. This pad comes in a few different sizes, 6x6,12x12, and the one I have, 4.25x5.5.
 Now I have to say, I have never really been a fan of sanded dry embossing- it just doesn't do it for me, and that of course is the idea behind the coated cardstock. So not really sure what possessed me to buy it- probably the fact that it was Black :).










 
Anyway, I thought I would use the Birds & Swirls Cuttlebug folder on a sheet, to tie in with the birds in the image.





  So I ran it through the folder, and when it came out, in places the coating had split, revealing the green beneath, which didn't actually look too bad.I found the little bit of sandpaper that comes with it to remove the surface, and gave it a bit of a wipe over, and rather liked the detail it revealed.

The image was mounted on top with DST, a Birthday sentiment stamped in Black & heat embossed onto a scrap added below it.



I trimmed it down to the edges of the embossed panel, and matted it onto a piece of coloured Kraft cardstock, as they had the same sort of surface finish. This is a 4.25x5.5 pad too.

I matted the image onto a green sheet of this, then onto a black base card.

A few flowers made from punches finished it off.







Supplies:
4 Little Songbirds Stamp, Crafty Individuals CI-184
Core'dinations Black Magic Pad
Kraft Core Pad
Cuttlebug Birds & Swirls Folder
Onyx Black Versafine
Assorted Flower punches.

Winter Moon Post-it note Holder

 This months challenge was all about Silhouettes, and for my second piece, I used a stamp from Non Sequiteur, from the plate 71c, Winter Solstice.









First I stamped  in Distress Black Soot onto a piece of White Pearlescent card. I then stamped the image onto  a couple of joined together post-it notes, and cut out the moon to use as a mask while I sponged on the colour.I used Sailboat Blue, Stream & Denim, then added some Eggplant round the edges. I also masked off the lower half of the image while I did this, again using post-its.

Now I switched over the post-its, and sponged the bottom of the image with Sunshine Yellow, Sunset Orange, Butterscotch and Rust.

This is the finished image with all the post-its removed. Using a white pearl card as a base gives the Moon a nice sheen.

Trimmed down to size, and ready for mounting,which I did onto dark blue card.I cut a base card to the same size as the mounted image, and folded it Easel style.On the bottom I added a strip of the dark blue card that I ran through my 'bug in a Lattice folder, then mounted a pad of Post-it notes with DST.

A really useful and quick to make pressie for someones desk, and you could swap the stamped image for a photo- or a little frame so the photo could be changed.