Copy-cat birds

I'm showing you my "AFTER" card (above) and my "BEFORE" card (below).

I was fiddling with this card, trying to get it to look just right, and I wanted to include some grass, but thought it wouldn't match to have green where there wasn't green anywhere else on the card. But after I added it, I think it looks great. Before it was just too plain, and I was having trouble tying together the reds and oranges, but with the addition of the flowers, I got to add more red, and a little green which I felt gave me permission to add my green grass. I also doodled in a horizon line to ground my little birds, and now I'm super happy with my results.

I saw this card in blues and greens on Scrapnextra's blog. I don't have the paper she used. Hmph.

I was considering doing this card on the cheap (ha! cheep, cheep) for a workshop, meaning I needed to stretch my designer paper for a larger quantity of cards. If possible, because the designer paper comes in 12x12 sheets, I like to use even increments so that all the paper gets used as fully as possible, with minimal tiny scraps/waste and as many pieces as possible. So for this card, I split the papers I used. I used Riding Hood Red DSP Patterns paper in a 4x2 piece and Washington Apple paper in a 4x3 piece. There's a small overlap of the two behind the focal point, covered with some Tango Tangerine striped ribbon.

Just like in my inspiration piece, I stamped the birds twice. Once on the main piece of watercolor paper and another time on a scrap of watercolor paper. I colored in the "scrap" birds, cut out just their bodies and then popped them up on dimensionals over the plain bodies for some more interest.