Birds and butterflies have always held a special place in my heart. This was a love my mother instilled in me at a very young age. Of course, the part involving capturing the butterflies in a net, euthanizing them and sticking a pin through them to put them on display I lay at the feet of the Scouting community's Badge Program. I do admit I did learn an awful lot in the process of trying to accumulate a whole string of badges to drape around my person. But my mother was the one who brought the world of nature to life for me. She introduced me to the intricate details of God's creation.
I have a small collection of various tiny bird dies, but this is the first large bird die I've gotten. For several years I've had my eye on this die but never got it because I couldn't figure out in my mind a layout or papers that would do it proud. But now I've been seeing a number of really outstanding cards using this beautiful gentle bird and have had ideas churning around in my head. I've also been dwelling on my aversion to working with stripes lately too since I've been seeing so many really gorgeous papers with really scrumptious color combinations of stripes. So I decided to work some into my bird card. And rather than buying a new striped paper that I felt I would probably destroy, I thought I may as well begin by using some I already have. In the past, years back, I've had many less than pleasing experiences in trying to work stripes into projects...so I've avoided using them. With so many fantastic striped papers hitting me in the face every time I go into my LSS I find that now I really want to learn to work with them. The one I've used here is a semi-glossy paper with some fine lines of gold among the browns. Thought gold would be a great accent for this paper (but then, that's usually the first thought that comes to my mind when I pick up almost any paper). Decided one way to ease into the stripe situation was to maybe have it be not so much of a stripe situation...so I put them at angles forming a sort of un-stripe like pattern. Maybe this is a form of my stripe denial taking over. Anyway, for now, this works for me. After surrounding them with white CS I went on to deal with what was now coming to look like a King Kong size bird. I couldn't just leave such a thing setting all by itself on my un-stripe striped background. It needed a branch. But using a scrawny looking little twiggy branch from my stash didn't seem balanced. Thought maybe just leaves would give an impression of an existing branch. Worked with that for awhile. Ended up with the MB Fresh Foliage in a textured gold CS. Still the balance bothered me. It needed a little something yet. Bling? Sparkle? Glitter? That might be too much. That's when I thought of "...and Friend". Popped one tiny wee Penny Black butterfly made with metallic gold CS on a leaf and called it...Pretty Good. Except....this was an A2 size card and all that stuff on that size card (4 1/4 x 5 1/2) just seemed a little overwhelming. Decided a 5x7 card would be better. Tried various contrasting colors and prints to serve as a background and ended up with the woodgrain print. Worked for me.
I'm happy with my stripes although I'm noticing I did try to hide them. Well, I'll keep working at it.
Thanks for looking. Have a great rest of the week!
Date: Tuesday, May 24, 2016 GMT Views: 1178
Favorited:7
Registered: September 12, 2007 Location: Wake Forest, NC Posts: 61357
Tue, May 24, 2016 @ 3:03 PM
And just what happened to getting in a challenge? I love your striped bg, Ms. Ellen, It's stunning with the design you created. Yes, the bird is big, but, you know what, it adds such a beautiful flair in gold. Dimensionally, its perfect for your window. Great work on this my sweet friend. I know what you mean about stripes. I feel the same way about sewing with them. I try to avoid them at all costs since I generally modify my patterns. Once modified, they never come together perfectly. You did well today, very well, in fact. Nice to see you in the gallery even if it wasn't uploaded to a challenge.
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