Do you guys love kraft paper as much as I do? I'm not sure how the craze for kraft paper in scrapbooking and cardmaking got started, but similar to the Washi tape craze, it's a tough one to resist, and I for one, have stopped trying. Now, the virtually unprocessed rawness of kraft paper makes it a challenging choice for the usually fancy, pink, laced and bedazzled Valentine card. Challenging, and therefore irresistible!
I set out to make a card for the Design Team Challenge (#155) that I had just posted on Let's Scrap, and the rules required that feathers and some form of bling be used in the design. "Birds," I thought, "if I make a card with birds on it, feathers will have a natural place on the card." I have a gorgeous cling stamp of a pair of Cardinals by Stampendous that I thought would be perfect.
I wanted the elements on the kraft paper to be red, so I chose brightly-colored scrapbook paper to stamp the birds onto with black StazOn archival ink.
Then I fussy-cut the birds (aren't they beautiful? I love this stamp!) and then inked the edges to make them pop.
I thought it would be fun to nestle the birds into some foliage with a bright red flower, so I turned to a mixed bouquet of silk flowers that I keep in my art room for inexpensive embellishment options.
After deconstructing the leaves & flower to eliminate bulk, I inked them to give them more dimension and interest.
The 4"x6" blank craft paper cards by Recollections were purchased at Michael's and come with matching envelopes! (My find-of-the-month!) I wanted to give the card a little more interest, so I stamped on a subtle background of several different script stamps and one that had a definition of "love" (one of my faves!) in red.
Great! Now I'm ready for the real fun stuff! I gathered all the elements, trimmed some red feathers to use for the tails and grabbed my trusty ZipDry fast-drying paper glue...
Hmm...I'm rather liking how this is coming out. The sketch inspiration I was using suggested a horizontal ribbon, so I added a great ribbon from a wonderful prize package that I won from The Kraaft Shaak's morning YouTube show. Oh don't forget the bling requirement! -Added a crystal heart to the ribbon...oh yeah! Looking good... And this little clay flair that says, "In Love" will add the perfect sentiment.
I love decorating the inside of cards as well, so I pulled out some fun stamps and the red ink pad again.
Oh yikes! I forgot to add the third requirement of the challenge! I was trying to encourage Let's Scrap members to use some of the wonderful Design Team Tutorials, so had added that to the challenge, and decided to use the "Mask & Mist" lesson. This would have been easy, had I remembered to mist before gluing, but now I had to tape off the elements that I had already applied, before spraying with the Creme de Rouge Glimmer Mist over my little chipboard heart mask.
Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels adds a subtle hint of color and a pretty opalescent sheen. The area where I placed the heart "mask" stays untinted and leaves an almost ghostly impression of the heart...so cool!
Well a part of me really loved the card, and now it met all the requirements I was illustrating, but something was still bothering me. The feather tails were just too whimsical for the rather literal image of the Cardinals...it just wasn't working for me, so I made the brave decision to turn them into fantasy birds instead. Brave? Or crazy? "REALLY? You're going o do this?"
I lopped off the crests and replaced them with tufts of red down. Then I trimmed some feathers into long, slender versions of themselves, similar to tail feathers of certain tropical birds. All the while, I'm thinking, "Is this over-the-top? Am I crazy for reworking a perfectly cute card?" Of course, once I went down the fantasy road, there was no stopping me! Out came more bling to line the wings...out came the pen to accentuate the eyes...then small crystals became the eyes...I'm liking this much better...it just "works"!
Well here...take a look at the card that evolved quite organically, from my original plan and see what you think:
I TRUELY AM INTERESTED IN WHAT YOU THINK! -So I hope you leave me a comment below...and I do hope you pop over to Let's Scrap to get the challenge rules & play along. Challenge #155 ends at midnight on Valentine's Day and there will be a random drawing with a nice little packet of scrapbooking goodies going out to the lucky winner.
In the meanime, Happy Scrapbooking and Cardmaking! -Enikö
