Birdie Duo

Happy 2008! This year has started out a little more calmly than the past two. During the last two years, my dog Cosmo has had some serious (and costly!!) medical issues right around the new year and I've been in a panic trying to deal with them. It's never a good thing when your vet jokes that instead of stitching the dog's belly up for the third time, he should put in a zipper . . . We're now celebrating a full year without a health crisis, which is great for Cosmo and for my finances. I'm hoping that this is a good sign for the new year. Now on to my first card of 2008. . .

I created this card for this week's color challenge on SCS. I really like the vibrant colors here (red, teal, celery). I used the cute A Little Birdie Told Me set from the new SU! catalog and created a fun element on the card front.

I stamped the "scene" I wanted on the white panel, then stamped the birds again on teal and red paper. I cut them out and attached them to the scene with dimensionals. I don't know what I was thinking when I decided to stamp the beaks on tiny scraps of paper so they'd be orangey--I lost a few of those little buggers in the process. The flowers are colored with markers and have red Stickles at the centers. I added a sponged in sky and grass to complete the scene. This picture shows the raised bird image and a little of the sparkle in the flowers.

I made a score mark 1/4" from the top of the scene panel and attached that small scored section to the teal panel. This allowed the scene panel to flip up to reveal a message (here, "you're the best"). I added a tab punch to the left side of the scene with a rhinestone brad embellishment as a signal to flip the panel up. Please ignore the fuzzy photo--I hadn't intended to take a photo of the card open like this and I'd used non-permanent adhesive to keep it closed and just as I went to snap a picture, it popped open. I thought it showed this element nicely (except for the blurriness!), so I decided to share it here.

I'm off to watch the Wisconsin Badgers play in the Outback Bowl (first bowl game of the day, I think). I dug out my lucky sweatshirt (worn for all big Badger events) and need to find Cosmo's Badger bandanna so he'll be ready for the game. Go Badgers!

Materials Used:

A Little Birdie Told Me and Dotted stamps, Taken with Teal, Cool Caribbean, Certainly Celery, and Basic Black Classic inks, Taken with Teal and Real Red markers, Taken with Teal, Real Red, Certainly Celery, Groovy Guava, and Whisper White cardstock, Certainly Celery Prints Series designer paper, Real Red grosgrain ribbon, mat pack and paper piercing tool, round tab punch, sponges, dimensionals (Stampin' Up!); rhinestone brad (Making Memories); Fruit Punch Stickles (Ranger)