Birdhouses

Well, it was my co-worker/stamper friend’s birthday, so I made her a card.  I feel a little more stress whenever the recipient of one of my cards is actually a stamper.   And this friend is not just any stamper, but she is the stamper who revived my interest in stamping after I had not stamped for about five years!  She was like a one-person SCS for me (before I found SCS) – full of neat card ideas and inspiration.  So I actually drew a rough draft of her card:

 

This was inspired by two cards:  Markie’s Mom’s WT123 Hello and Mothermark’s Heavy Metal Birdhouse. 

Then I actually took an entire day to make her card, but I didn’t scan it before I took it to work because I had finished it at the last minute!  

BUT the next day, I made a similar card for my husband (even though it is nowhere near his birthday), because he wants a copy of every card I make (if not the original).  My husband’s card looks like this: 

I used Rhonna Farrer’s Swirls (Autumn Leaves)  and Technique Tuesday’s Whirlygigs for the swirls and flourishes.  For the oval, I used The Angel Company’s Hip Hardware set.  I stamped the oval on craft paper and cut it out.  I hand-wrote the sentiment using a 005 Micron pen.  For the birdhouse, I circle-punched a hole from craft paper, cut out a birdhouse shape around the hole, and cut out a roof.  For the faux wood look on the birdhouse, I used Stampin’ Up’s Weathered background stamp.  For the centre panel, I punched the corners with a corner adorner inset paper punch. This is all on Strathmore’s 140 lb cold-pressed watercolour paper.  I hand-drew the birds and the ladybugs (my husband loves ladybugs).  Then I watercoloured everything with Winsor & Newton’s Cotman (student grade) watercolours, except for the birds, which I coloured with Grumbacher’s Indigo watercolour. 

At work, I had thought my co-worker/friend was going to be working on her actual birthday, so I asked another co-worker (Tracy) if I could pay her to bake a cake (because I don’t know how to bake) for the birthday girl on the actual birthday. Tracy agreed and brought in an awesome chocolate mint cake.  But alas, no birthday girl!  Tracy said, no problem – she’ll make another one the next day – for free!  Wow!  So everyone happily demolished the chocolate mint cake, and the next day, Tracy brought in an awesome pumpkin pecan cake – (and the birthday girl was there too *grin*).  This cake was gone within 15 minutes – it was sooooo good.  I was totally grateful and made Tracy a card too!

I was totally wiped out and not feeling creative, so I decided to make it similar to the birthday card.  But I changed the bird in the birdhouse.  Here is the rough draft of the chef bird (mechanical pencil on Strathmore’s 140 lb cold-pressed watercolour paper:

I traced the birdhouse circular opening first, and then filled it in with the scene.  Then I inked it up with a waterproof 005 Micron pen, erased the pencil, and watercoloured it. 

…and here is the finished thank-you card for Tracy:

And since I am posting this several days after all this happened, I am happy to say that both the birthday girl (and DH) and Tracy liked their cards!