More is More

It’s time for another monthly Dirty Dozen Alumni Gallery Reunion.  This month’s focus is OWLS.  Whoo Hoo!  They seem to be everywhere right now.  I’m a bird-lover, as you know, so I am A-OK with that!  Each month our little challenge has a required element and a restricted element.  This month’s requirement is *texture* and the restriction is no rhinestones, crystals or dew drop type embellishments (you should have heard the groans when everyone heard that one!  LOL!)

The only owl image I own is the adorable A Muse Owl Buddies stamp I won at StampMania so that decision was quite simple.  I wanted to have a moon behind the owls and I was in the mood to try a shaker card, so here is the result.

I started out by stamping the owl/branch image directly on the acetate with Brilliance Pearlescent Chocolate ink and coloring the back with Sharpies.  After the entire shaker was made I decided I didn’t like the way the owls looked so I stamped them again on Ivory shimmer cardstock, colored them with Copics and cut them out and adhered them over the original birds – ahhh much better!  (Further proof than anything can be salvaged!) The shaker frame was made by punching capucchino shimmer cardstock first with a Marvy Giga Scallop Circle Punch, then punching out the center with a Marvy Super Jumbo (2″) Circle Punch.  The acetate piece was adhered to the back of the frame with Tombow Multi and then I used small pieces of double thick foam tape (cut to half width) to form the shaker box.  The backing of the shaker is poison ivory shimmer cardstock as is the card base.

I really like the double thickness (1/8″ as opposed to 1/16″) for shaker cards and you can get it from Tayloredexpressions.  That foam tape is super extra sticky so having non-stick scissors is a life saver.  I have a small pair just for foam tape and sticky strip.  The ones I have are the old discontinued model by Fiskar’s but Taylor has the current model available here.  (Oooo – they’re on sale!)  I had a picture to show you, but I’m having trouble uploading it so take a look at her site.  All my customers LOVE my non-stick scissors in class.  It’s a tool I couldn’t be without!

For texture on this card I ran a piece of the capuchino shimmer cardstock through my Cuttlebug with the Floral Fantasy embossing folder (from eclectic Paperie) and then rubbed it with Versamagic Thatched Straw Chalk Ink to highlight the pattern.  I also heat embossed the Chocolate Chip cardstock panel with the leaf image from Carte Postale using Chocolate Chip Craft Ink and clear embossing powder.  The ribbon is SU Chocolate Chip Tafetta.  The finishing touches include Cinnamon Stickles around the shaker frame along with some die cut leaves and a large brad colored brown with a Copic marker.  The shaker is filled with clear microbeads.

It’s funny because I really didn’t set out to make such a *brown* card.  I actually had some colorful designer paper out as well, but the whole thing was just looking too busy so I nixed the dp and this is where I ended up.  I sure had fun working on this – hope you like it.  Click here to check out all the Dirty submissions – girls will be uploading all day so be sure to check back.

Oh and be sure to check out Taylor’s blog today – she is releasing her first Taylored Kit and I’m sure it will be an adorable and FUN project!

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a great day!