Hi

Here's my card for this week's Paper Smooches SPARKS Picture Perfect challenge.  I took my cues from the inspiration photo's line of sweet birds on a branch and the photo's muted color palette to create this card.

To make a branch, I die cut one of the trees from the Trees 1 die set from kraft cardstock, then inked it with distress ink before adhering it to the edge of a pale gray card base.  My bird is from the Spring Groves set.  It was stamped on a scrap of blue cardstock.  I paper pieced the beak with a teeny, tiny piece of white cardstock that I colored orange.  After stamping the bird image just above the branch, the blue bird was adhered to the image outline with foam tape for dimension. 

So that the branch wasn't floating in mid-air on its own, I used one of the dies from the Backdrop Builders set to make a grassy hill from green cardstock.  An outline cloud cut from shimmery white cardstock using one of the Curly Clouds dies helped to fill in the sky.  I stamped the "hi" sentiment from the Daisies and Paisleys set beneath the branch to complete the design.

Materials Used:
Spring Groves and Daisies and Paisleys stamp sets, Trees 1, Curly Clouds, and Backdrop Builders dies (Paper Smooches); Memento Tuxedo Black ink (IMAGINE Crafts/Tsukineko); Grout Gray cardstock (My Favorite Things); Blue Bayou, Kiwi Kiss, and Shimmery White cardstock (Stampin' Up!); Kraft cardstock (WPlus9); foam tape