Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Inspiration Challenge #26: Little Sparrows


Have you ever browsed the hand-crafted offerings at Etsy? If not, go! Now! It is one of my latest take-a-break-from-work activities to see what's just been listed. I haven't made too many purchases (yet!) but I love looking for new inspiration pieces there. This week's challenge comes from this Little Sparrows print by yumiyumi. Her work is lovely!

When I picked this piece, I didn't think too much about the fact that I don't really do bird stamps. I see other people making lovely cards with them, but they are just not my thing. But then I realized, I do have a couple bird stamps in my Christmas collection: peace doves. With my Mennonite background, that's one of my favorite Christmas motifs. So I decided to do my Christmas card for the week for today's challenge. (I know, I've been slacking on my Christmas card challenge the last couple weeks. I need to get back on the wagon!) And I used the SCS sketch challenge for the layout - which was a fun sketch full of squares from the ever-talented Jen del Muro.

This card was really quite simple to do. The first thing I did this morning was stamp the mistletoe from Peaceful Wishes (another set I'm very sad to see retiring) all over a tempting turquoise cardstock panel with whisper white craft ink. While it dried I punched nine 1 3/4" squares from real red cardstock with a Marvy punch. They fit perfectly into a grid on a 5.5" square white card.

Once the white ink was dry, I cut nine 1 5/8" squares (alas, no punch this time) and added them onto the grid. Then I took a crimson Prismacolor pencil and colored all the berries to get the punch of red that the inspiration piece features. I accented the stems with my Sakura clear glitter pen.

For the center square I first stamped "peace" (Hero Arts) in first and second generation using my turquoise marker. The marker allowed me to only color the word and not the flourish going out from it on each side, and the shadow left from the previous inking told me exactly where to color each time. Over that I stamped the dove (PrintWorks) in real red and accented with glitter pen. The white square is 2.5" and the red layer is 2.75".

The red swirl ribbon (is it A Muse? it was from my LSS and comes in lots of colors) I just found yesterday when I was cleaning. I wrapped a bit of it around two corners of the square, then made a bow and attached it to the lower corner. I mounted the center square on foam tape.

I'd love to see your creations based on this inspiration piece. The keyword for uploading to SCS this week is DSIC26. Thanks for visiting and have a great day!

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