Thursday 14 January 2016

Birdsong

Greetings to you and to 2016!

I'm delighted to start my first post of the year with a guest design spot at one of my very favourite blogs Frilly & Funkie. The theme there for Cec's challenge is 'Sing, Sing, Sing' which is a nicely adaptable kind of theme if you are like me and finding it difficult to get your mojo going right after Christmas. (Receiving a Radio Frequency Ablation to my neck last week hasn't helped either!).


(Click pic to enlarge)
The bird itself is diecut using Sizzix 'Bird Scroll' die. He's been decorated with Frantage embossing enamel in 'Shabby White', blue Frantage fragments and glitter in 'Steel Blue'. A little bell adorns his wing to match one affixed to grosgrain bow. The three gold music charms are from stash. Branch is made from brown velvet ric-rac and Magnolia and Memory Box diecuts using Bazzill 'Chocolate' cardstock. Outer rims are edged with 'Tea Dye' distress ink.

The layer below is a music paper by Pion Design cut using a beautiful Joy Crafts die ('Square and Chandelier'). I tried edging this square with 'Tea Dye' distress ink to tie in with other layers but it didn't look great so have left edges clean on this one. Stamped the paper with Tim Holtz 'Speckle' stamp using 'Potting Soil' archival ink and applied some 'Shabby White' Frantage. Dotted pearls around the musical square too.

The blue layer below (by Pion Design) has been cut with my new Martha Stewart 'Eyelet Lace' punch. Again, stamped with 'Speckle' stamp and edged with 'Tea Dye' DI to bring consistency through the layers. Sprinkled on some 'Shabby White' Frantage and 'Steel Blue' glitter.

Layer below that is cream cardstock. I cut a square slightly larger than the blue paper layer and using it as a mask dabbed 'Tea Dye' ink around rim of a larger cream square so that a border of 'Tea Dye' ink formed right around. Then randomly stamped some music using a Katzelkraft stamp and 'Potting Soil' ink. Sprinkled around blue Frantage fragments and added little blue crystals to corners.

Lowest blue layer has just had its edges inked with 'Tea Dye' and pearls dotted at corners.

So why don't you make something musical and enter the Frilly & Funkie challenge. There's a great prize to be won and in any event you're guaranteed to find lots of great ideas from the talented design team there. Huge thanks to all at Frilly & Funkie for inviting me to guest design for them today - it's always a privilege.

Just one more thing, apparently the lovely people at Google Blogger are going to bring about some changes (again!) to the Blogger Follower Gadget. You must be signed up to Follow Blogger blogs (including mine) using a Gmail account - if you don't use a Google account you will be dropped off into the cyber nether. For more details please hop over to the ever eloquent Alison who explains it more clearly here - thanks Alison! (Anyone Following by Email or Bloglovin' should not be impacted).

As always, very many thanks for your visit.
Nicola x

I wish to enter card to the following challenges:
Anything But Cute - Ring Out The Old, Bring In The New - new punch
Live & Love Crafts - Something New (new punch)
Tuesday Throwdown - Add Dimension
Shopping Our Stash - Something New - new punch
Die Cuttin Divas - Tweet, Tweet, Use A Bird
We Love 2 Create - Anything Creative / Mixed Media Goes
Craft For The Craic - January Blues
Scrapy Land - Anything Goes using brand carried by Scrapy Land (Memory Box)
Stamps & Stencils - Oh So Blue
Noor Design - Anything Goes