Put a bird on it.

A good friend recently introduced us to Portlandia, the ultra-hip TV show, and further introduced me to their catch-phrase: "Put a Bird on It!" See, everything's prettier with a bird on it. And I couldn't agree more!

I wanted to make my friend a thank-you card, and this design just popped into my head. I guess it's my hip-est card to date... I even included baker's twine, which is hipness at its best in my book.

I've accumulated several die-cut alphabets, so I was happy to have a reason to use some of them. The corrugated Kraft and small framed letters are from Jillibean Soup, and the glittered orange foam stickers are from Future Publishing (probably a freebie from one of Mom's magazines).

I covered the framed letters with Crackle Paint and distressed the edges with my Prima tool. The corners are embellished with my favorite Marvy corner punch. 

The wood bird is from Prima's Birds & Owls collection; I adhered one to adhesive foam and used it as a stamp to heat-emboss the row in translucent yellow. Then I heat-embossed the wood piece with the same powder and perched it on the "u".

I had too much fun making this, and I think my friend will get a real kick out of it. 

Inspiration/Challenges:
Cupcake Inspirations: Photo Inspiration/Birds
Divas by Design: Anything Goes
Inspire Me Fridays: Anything Goes
Party Time Tuesdays #109: Anything Goes


Update: This was a featured project for Inspire Me Fridays #97.

Here's a clip from Portlandia:

Thank you for visiting,

Jen's Sunshine Blog Hop

Many thanks to everyone who participated in the Hop! The Winners can be found HERE.

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Welcome to my stop on the Jen's Sunshine Blog Hop! I've had the pleasure of working with Jennifer at Pile It On, and boy does she keep everyone's spirits up! So Jen, this is for you and for all the Sunshines in my life!

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Paper Makeup Stamps & Party Time Tuesdays Challenge Blog proudly presents 

"Jen's Sunshine" Blog Hop

Today we take time to honor our friend and fellow crafter Jen Scull.  If you are here hopping with us, then I am sure you know Jen is battling breast cancer.  She has been fighting this nasty disease since February.  On behalf of Jen, we thank you for being here.

I made a Magic Picture card with an SVG file I made:

Original inspiration for magic picture cards: Extreme Cards & Papercrafting
Magic Card tutorial: SplitcoastStampers
My SVG file for Magic Picture Card: free download at 4shared.com

We ask as you hop along with us, please consider donating at least $1 using the paypal donation button at any stop along the way.  Your donation will go directly to Jen. Thank you.

It wouldn't be a hop without prizes.  To see a full list of the prizes up for grabs, please visit 

Paper Makeup Stamps

and

Party Time Tuesdays Challenge Blog

To be eligible to win a prize from our sponsors, collect the hidden letters located throughout the hop.  Once you spell out the secret phrase, please email Jenn Cochran at partytimetuesdays@hotmail.com.  This will get you entered to win one of several fabulous prizes.

This hop will remain open till Tuesday Sept.4th

Winners announced Sept. 7th

Happy Hopping!

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I'm entering my card into the following challenges:

Charisma Cardz - lace

Come and Get It Challenges - 3D Flowers

Eureka Stamps - Anything Goes
My Crafting Channel SVG Challenge #4 - Anything Goes + an SVG file
My Heart Pieces Digital Stamps Challenge - Your favourite colour (Love yellow! It was the color of childhood bedroom, and also how I painted my study in the attic)

Thank you for visiting,

Pun Ahoy!

[My stop on the Dude Time Doodles New Release Blog Leap is HERE]

I'm really enjoying everyone's projects this week inspired by the "Pun" challenge at CAS-ual Fridays. I do love a bad pun! It was difficult for me not to come up with my own, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to use this pun-tastic wordart offered by Create with TLC on Talk like a Pirate Day.

I'm taking a stab at using up my never-ending collection of scraps, and I found this just-the -right-size scrap of compass-themed DP. The card itself is made from a scrap too; I just folded it in half and voilà. I simply printed the sentiment onto glassine paper.

Cards for Men Challenge #5

Inspiration/Challenges:

CAS-ual Fridays Challenge #41: Jest for the Pun of it(Dang I missed the deadline!)

Cards for Men Challenge #5: Sketch

Less is More Week 56: Don't Scrap It

Party Time Tuesday Challenge #57: Anything Goes

Cuppas

As much as I love hand-crafting, I also enjoy designing on my computer. For this card, I used digital paper-piecing; basically, it's cutting & pasting using layers in PhotoShop (I used InDesign for the final card layout). I learned this technique via trial-and error over the years, but Arielle of Snappy Stampin' has a great Digital Paper Piecing tutorial. The Cuppa Tea & sentiment images are Meljen's Designs freebies, and were so perfect for this. For the "papers", I used a CD-ROM from Crafter's Companion, which gave me lots of coordinating papers to play with. 

The polka-dots are heat-embossed onto the ribbon; so easy and fun! The key is to tape the ribbon down onto your stamping surface. I heat-embossed an entire teacup brad in blue, but stamped onto the purple & green brads. The pattern is green embossed on the green brad. Both Dot stamps (silicon and rubber) are from Studio G.

I added some twine that I bought at Can You Digi It? for good measure!

Inspiration/Challenges:

• Cooking It Up #89: A Spooled Metal Sentiment (anything that comes on a Spool + something Metal + Sentiment)
•  spooled, silk ribbon from May Arts; Vintage Tea Cups brads from Hot Off the Press; digi stamp sentiment by Meljen's Designs
• Crafter's Companion February Challenge: Anything Goes 
• Digi Papers from their Beatrix Potter - The Tale of Peter Rabbit CD-ROM
• Critter Sketch Challenge #102: Sketch (right)
• Meljen's Designs Challenge #97: Anything Goes
• When I started making this card, I was following last week's Pastels challenge, but I finished it up for this week's...Thanks for the double inspiration!
• Party Time Tuesdays Challenge #55: Get Well Wishes