Hi Everyone! Hope your Sunday is bright and cheery. It is rainy and dreary here in Atlanta, but the temperatures are wonderful--it's 63 degrees and I'm loving that, lol! Here's something to brighten up your day if you are having the same weather as us.
Today's project carries on the new baby theme. After making the photo frames for the big brother and big sisters of my newest granddaughter, Baby Sissy needed something special for her room, too! So I created this mixed media art on canvas, which was made using my Cricut Expression and Straight From the Nest cartridge. There are several other cartridges that have various types of birds and bird cages, but the bird on this particular cartridge very closely matched the birds found in Baby Sissy's bedding, so that's why it was chosen over the others.
I began this project by painting the sides of a 12x12 canvas brown and adding brown and pink polka dot ribbon over top. I then covered the canvas with decoupage and added my background paper. After that dried, I covered the top of the paper with two more coats of decoupage: the first coat painted on with a brush in a vertical direction, and the second in a horizontal direction, to create the linen effect you see below. Before it dried, I added the little birds in each corner which were cut with my Martha Stewart corner punch...they were just too cute and I couldn't pass up the chance to use them in this application, lol! :o}
My daughter did Baby Sissy's nursery in brown and pink with a bird theme, so I cut this little bird twice--once on brown cardstock and then again on white, glittered cardstock, and then inked the edges in brown. The wing was fussy cut from brown and white patterned paper that I dug out of my scrap bin. I don't know about you, but I've got so many scraps and I'm always looking for a way to use them! The eye is simply a dot from my hole punch dotted with my white opaque pen and covered with a drop of Glossy Accents. I could have used a button or a brad or even some bling to create the eye, as well. I cut the perch away from the birdcage and embossed it with my Big Kick and herringbone embossing folder to draw the eye inward.
The cage itself was cut twice, once from brown cardstock and once again from this pink hologram cardstock. I found this hologram cardstock at Walmart and I chose it to give an overall metallic feel to the birdcage. I'm happy to report that this paper cuts like butter on my Cricut machine!
Since there was no shadow feature for this cage, when I mounted the layers, I slightly offset the upper layer to the right to cast a bit of a shadow of my own. I originally tried cutting the brown layer slightly larger, which has worked for me in the past with other images; however, this particular birdcage is quite intricate, so the proportions simply didn't match up enough to make sense to the eye.
Now, any of you who know me know that I can't resist making my projects dimensional--especially when they are for children. For this project, I actually cut the cage apart in three sections as you can see above. I popped up each part of the cage, including the shadow beneath, and then popped up the mid-section above that. It wasn't easy, though...all of those rungs on the cage needed very thin cuts of foam tape, so I had quite a bit of hand cutting to do. However, it was well worth the extra time and effort. I think it made quite a difference in the overall depth of the project.
I used flat-back pearls placed in various areas to add a bit of bling that accents the cage. I also used my Crop-A-Dile III-Main Squeeze, with the tag die cutting plate, to cut this tiny tag from brown cardstock. I added the baby's monogram (her name is Carys) with a sticker, and highlighted the letter, as well as dotted around the edges, with my opaque pen. Then I covered the entire surface with Glossy Accents. After allowing it to dry, I added a bit of pink ribbon.
The project would have been bare without adding lots of pretty flowers. There are silk flowers, ribbon flowers, paper flowers, glittered leaves, as well as shiny, metallic leaves, and lots of brown and white polka dot ribbon. I always use my glue gun for this type of thing. To accent them a bit, I pulled off the wire stems of some of the flowers and curled them up real tight to make the spirals you see here and there.
This project was time consuming, but I loved every minute of it and it looks darling on Baby Sissy's bedroom wall!
I hope you enjoyed this project and I'll be back again soon with something new. Have a great weekend!
Merilee
Today's project carries on the new baby theme. After making the photo frames for the big brother and big sisters of my newest granddaughter, Baby Sissy needed something special for her room, too! So I created this mixed media art on canvas, which was made using my Cricut Expression and Straight From the Nest cartridge. There are several other cartridges that have various types of birds and bird cages, but the bird on this particular cartridge very closely matched the birds found in Baby Sissy's bedding, so that's why it was chosen over the others.
I began this project by painting the sides of a 12x12 canvas brown and adding brown and pink polka dot ribbon over top. I then covered the canvas with decoupage and added my background paper. After that dried, I covered the top of the paper with two more coats of decoupage: the first coat painted on with a brush in a vertical direction, and the second in a horizontal direction, to create the linen effect you see below. Before it dried, I added the little birds in each corner which were cut with my Martha Stewart corner punch...they were just too cute and I couldn't pass up the chance to use them in this application, lol! :o}
My daughter did Baby Sissy's nursery in brown and pink with a bird theme, so I cut this little bird twice--once on brown cardstock and then again on white, glittered cardstock, and then inked the edges in brown. The wing was fussy cut from brown and white patterned paper that I dug out of my scrap bin. I don't know about you, but I've got so many scraps and I'm always looking for a way to use them! The eye is simply a dot from my hole punch dotted with my white opaque pen and covered with a drop of Glossy Accents. I could have used a button or a brad or even some bling to create the eye, as well. I cut the perch away from the birdcage and embossed it with my Big Kick and herringbone embossing folder to draw the eye inward.
The cage itself was cut twice, once from brown cardstock and once again from this pink hologram cardstock. I found this hologram cardstock at Walmart and I chose it to give an overall metallic feel to the birdcage. I'm happy to report that this paper cuts like butter on my Cricut machine!
Since there was no shadow feature for this cage, when I mounted the layers, I slightly offset the upper layer to the right to cast a bit of a shadow of my own. I originally tried cutting the brown layer slightly larger, which has worked for me in the past with other images; however, this particular birdcage is quite intricate, so the proportions simply didn't match up enough to make sense to the eye.
Now, any of you who know me know that I can't resist making my projects dimensional--especially when they are for children. For this project, I actually cut the cage apart in three sections as you can see above. I popped up each part of the cage, including the shadow beneath, and then popped up the mid-section above that. It wasn't easy, though...all of those rungs on the cage needed very thin cuts of foam tape, so I had quite a bit of hand cutting to do. However, it was well worth the extra time and effort. I think it made quite a difference in the overall depth of the project.
I used flat-back pearls placed in various areas to add a bit of bling that accents the cage. I also used my Crop-A-Dile III-Main Squeeze, with the tag die cutting plate, to cut this tiny tag from brown cardstock. I added the baby's monogram (her name is Carys) with a sticker, and highlighted the letter, as well as dotted around the edges, with my opaque pen. Then I covered the entire surface with Glossy Accents. After allowing it to dry, I added a bit of pink ribbon.
The project would have been bare without adding lots of pretty flowers. There are silk flowers, ribbon flowers, paper flowers, glittered leaves, as well as shiny, metallic leaves, and lots of brown and white polka dot ribbon. I always use my glue gun for this type of thing. To accent them a bit, I pulled off the wire stems of some of the flowers and curled them up real tight to make the spirals you see here and there.
This project was time consuming, but I loved every minute of it and it looks darling on Baby Sissy's bedroom wall!
I hope you enjoyed this project and I'll be back again soon with something new. Have a great weekend!
Merilee
