Branching Out – Song Sparrow Papercrafts

Welcome in, friends, on this very soggy day. We experienced some record-breaking rainfall in our area yesterday, which made yesterday’s commute home very interesting and is sure to impact this morning’s commute, as well.

Today is going to be a two-post day since my evening didn’t go quite as planned yesterday — I’ll tell you a bit more about that later. This week, we’re tipping our hats to spring with all of our projects. And today we’re letting the brand new Flowers Fair background stamp and the Delicate Dreams foiled paper take center stage.

We get started with a base of white cardstock. A sheet of the small floral patterned paper from the new Delicate Dreams paper pack serves as the backdrop for our focal panel. The focal panel starts with a quarter-panel of Cloud Cover cardstock where we stamp the new Flowers Fair image in black. Using a combination of Pretty in Pink, Berry Burst, and Lost Lagoon Stampin’ Blend markers, the image is colored in. The panel is cut down to size for our card front using the Branching Out dies. I wrapped some of the new Berry Burst shiny ribbon around the midsection of the panel and then adhered the sentiment panel over it. The sentiment panel starts with a mat of the Earthen Toned metallic paper that is cut with the larger sentiment die from the Words of Beauty set. The sentiment panel is cut from white cardstock with the smaller sentiment die from the same die set. Then we carefully stamp the sentiment using a combination of stamps from the Wonderful Thoughts stamp set using Blackberry Bliss ink. We finish things off with our embellishments — a dash of Wink of Stella to the lighter pink flowers, some smaller iridescent pearls to the sentiment panel, and a few metallic dots on either side of our focal panel.

I really love how this card came together. And this is truly one of those instances where the whole design evolved as I went and pulled new crafty goodness that I wanted to be sure to include.

Now how about a little backstory on how my evening didn’t go to plan. Aside from the exceedingly long and rainy commute home, one of the feral kitties we’ve been feeding finally returned to our porch last night in between bands of rain. Yes, we’re some of those crazy cat people!

She’s quite young — likely approaching her first season — and super friendly. While she’s naturally skittish, if she figures out that you’re one of the nice ones, she sticks to you like glue and just wants all the pets. We’re calling her Ava. So needless to say, we quickly began formulating a plan to try to catch her the next time she appeared so that we could get her vetted, fixed, and put up for adoption through our local rescue group.

Last night, she was being pursued by a suitor in our driveway and I went outside to see if I could call her up. I called once and she came running — suitor hot on her tail….until he caught sight of me. After she snacked for a bit and got lots of pets, I swooped her up and brought her inside with our feral momma kitty who is close to her release date. So she got to stay safe and dry during last night’s torrential rains and we’re now making plans to find her a happy home.

Hopefully this evening will be a little less eventful and I can bring you the card I have in mind for today. As always, thanks for popping in and I hope you’re enjoying this week’s series so far!

Products used in today’s card:
Basic White, Cloud Cover cardstock
Delicate Dreams, Earthen Toned metallic DSP
Branching Out, Words of Beauty dies
Flowers Fair, Wonderful Thoughts stamps
Stampin’ Blends
Wink of Stella
Berry Burst shiny ribbon
Iridescent basic pearls, metallic dots
Dimensionals

Happy Tuesday, everybody. I still find it hard to figure out what day of the week it is after being home sick and just the holidays generally. Anybody else? Slowly but surely we’ll get back in the groove. But not before another holiday interrupts our week!

This week we’re playing with some of my new crafty goodies that arrived. And we’re keeping it simple again today with the new On Display stamp & die bundle. All of the little images in this set make it easy to make quick, clean & simple cards, which is super helpful when you’re short on time but don’t want your card to show short on thoughtfulness. Today we’re pairing up On Display with the current Product of the Month True Blue Florals paper to create this cutie.

We get started with a base of Balmy Blue cardstock and we’re using the floral pattern (that reminds me of my grandmother’s wallpaper) from the True Blue Florals paper pack as our backdrop. I wrapped this panel with some Misty Moonlight linen thread to tie all of our hues of blue together. The focal panel is cut from white cardstock with the smallest die in the Branching Out set and then matted with Misty Moonlight glimmer paper from the Peaceful Garden glimmer pack that’s diecut with the next size up. I stamped the sentiment from the On Display set directly onto the focal panel in the top-right corner. Our potted plants are cut with the On Display dies with a combination of Cajun Craze, Mossy Meadow, Oxidized Copper, and Shaded Spruce. They’re adhered onto our focal panel with dimensionals and then the full panel is adhered to our card front with dimensionals, as well. We finish things off with some Misty Moonlight flowers from the Hues of Blue flower set, along with some Secret Sea charming shimmer dots.

Doesn’t this feel like a picture in a picture? I just love that effect. And I love how the backdrop feels calm and familiar, just like my Granny’s house. This card would be perfect to welcome someone into a new home or simply to just say hello.

Tune in tomorrow as we take a peek in Granny’s curio cabinet. It will be fun to see what we find!

Product List