I made this card for my folks in honor of the their 61st Anniversary. My mom always enjoyed watching the owls nest in nearby trees when I was growing up, so I knew she would enjoy these little fellows in a paper tree! Here are the deets (please don't fall asleep as you read this...): I was inspired by many wonderful owl cards that I found on SCS, so many that I can't link to them all, but thank you, everyone! Averil Tanner had a wonderful hand-cut tree shape that I tried to CASE. Here is her work:
This card is sized to fit a 4 1/2 X 6 1/4" envelope. I sketched the shape on folded card of creamy carmel cs cut 1/4" smaller than the envelope size. After hand cutting the tree, it was dry embossed with the PTI Woodgrain Impression Plate and sponged with Memories Soft Wheat ink. I used a 2 1/8" circle punch to cut the hole in the tree trunk (card was wrong shape to use a Nestie circle in the Cuttlebug...bummer!). Cut an off-white cs liner to fit inside the card and sponged Soft Wheat ink through the front hole onto the off white cs. Made a Nestie Lacey Circle using SU Pool Party cs and cut the center from it using the same circle punch I used to make the tree hole - glued the Lacey Circle ring to the card front and sponged edges with Soft Wheat ink. Martha Stewart Vine Trim punch was used to creat the leafy branches and swinging sign was made with EK Success Photo Labels punch. The owls were done with the SU Owl Punch with designer paper used for the vest and the dress. Google eyes were mounted on top of the cs eyes to add a some personality to the owls.
Here's a link to a photo of the inside of the card, in case you were curious how it was finished:
Stamps: anniversary - Studio G, inside greeting - Spring Mix by Gina K Designs
Paper: SU Creamy Caramel, SU Pool Party, SU Certainly Celery, Archivers Brown, Cosmo Cricket Wanted dp, Studio 112 Baily Tag booklet Joann's dollar spot
Accessories: scissors, PTI Woodgrain Impression plate, Spellbinders Nestie Lacey Circles, 2 1/8" circle punch, Martha Stewart Vine Trim punch, EK Success Photo Labels punch, SU Linen Thread, google eyes, SU Owl Punch
Techniques: sketching by hand, punching, die cutting, sponging
Difficulty (1-Easy 5-Advanced): 3? Not difficult to construct once the design was drawn and cut, but took lots of fiddling to make it all work out right. Fun and challenging project but worth the effort!