I made this as a candidate for a guest designer post I did for a red & brown Christmas card challenge. I had a leftover landscape-oriented inside panel that I wanted to use, so I wanted a landscape-oriented card. So there were those constraints on my design (albeit the inside panel one was self-imposed). So of course, I went searching on my Pinterest boards for inspiration, & found this card I'd saved previously. As I happen to have the same cardinal stamp & die set, I decided to go with something like that.
I die cut the wood planks from kraft cardstock, & inked them lightly with Barn Door & Lumberjack Plaid Distress inks, to make them look like a faded, aged barn wall. I glued them to a panel of dark brown cardstock, leaving slight gaps between the planks to add depth & further the barn wall look.
I didn't want to stamp the bird on white cardstock, which I felt would make it look out-of-place. So I used the same kraft cardstock as for the wood planks. I began by stamping the base layer with white pigment ink, so the red inks would show up more true. I found that I had to dry each ink layer in between stamping the different layers, as the dye inks that followed didn't really absorb into the white ink layer. But no big deal. At first, I felt the reds came out too cool in tone overall, so I stamped a second bird with different inks. But I messed up lining up the layers on that one, and didn't feel like stamping yet another bird. It was kind of interesting how the first one grew on me after that! ;)
I wanted the bird to sit on the edge of a window opening, so I die cut a rectangle out of my background panel. I used that same die plus one a little larger to cut a frame, & glued that in place around the opening.
For the "inside" seen through the window, I cut a panel of brown cardstock. I stamped the greeting in Antique Linen Distress Oxide ink, & clear heat embossed it. Then I inked over that panel with Walnut Stain Distress ink, just to heighten the contrast with the greeting. I adhered my "wall" to that panel with foam tape, & added the cardinal. Finally, I mounted the card front to a white card base.
Date: Sunday, October 22, 2023 GMT Views: 156
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