Thank You

The New Year always sees a number of thank you cards being required plus lots of scraps left over from Christmas crafting, so this card is the perfect combination a thank you card made from scraps and as an added bonus using one of my Christmas presents in its creation.

All the papers used were off cuts from previous projects and are from the Kaisercraft 'Gyspy Sisters' range. I started by sorting the bits out to decide how they could best be combined and the largest bits were set to one side to form the background. After this process I managed to find the patterned strip for the edge, the dark red plain paper and two pieces of cream paper that were double sided and approximately A5 size but the edges weren't straight on any of the pieces so I decided that as the colours would work well with a vintage theme I would tear the edges and ink them I used a Momento ink pad in 'Rich Cocoa' for the inking. One of the cream pieces I tore in half to give me more paper to play with for the embellishments and stamped details of the card. I then stamped the background image for behind the birdcage using the same ink pad to provide consistency and using one of the images from the Papermania Urban stamps 'Bird Print' range. Unfortunately I managed to smudge the first image so had to stamp it again which used more paper than I wanted but I was able to use the smudged image in my die cutter for one of the flowers. I stamped the bird from the same stamp range onto another scrap of paper and the sentiment stamp was from a set of free stamps with this months card making and papercraft magazine.
Once I had cut out all the stamped images I took the off cuts of paper I was left with and placed them over the cutting areas of the Tim Holtz 'Tattered Flowers' die I had received as a Christmas gift. From these scraps I was able to obtain one large flower, one daisy and one medium flower, and a total of six of the smallest flower on the die. As the papers were double sided this gave me quite a variety when layering the flowers up.
I found a tag from the same paper range in my stash and a circular topper. I mounted the bird on the tag, and the sentiment on the circular topper to give more depth to the design. The bird cage was cut from a small piece of purple of mirror card that was left over from a friends birthday card, and the ribbon for the bows and purple feather were in the 'it might come in useful box' along with the blue flat back gems that I used for the flower centres.
I arranged everything onto an A5 card blank before sticking everything down, but the background seemed a bit dull so to add interest I debissed the dark purple paper piece using a cArt us embossing folder, and then dabbed the surface against the momento ink pad, Once I had done this I was much happier with the overall look of the card and stuck the backing papers down using double sided tape and then used glue gel for the other elements to raise them slightly from the background image.

And there it is a thank you card from scraps.

I am entering this card into the following challenges
http://trimmiescraftchallenge.blogspot.com - Thank You
http://clearitoutchallenge.blogspot.com - Thank you and use up your twine or ribbon
http://craftyourpassionchallenges.blogspot.com  - Anything Goes and distressing
http://inkyimpressionschallenges.blogspot.com - Anything Goes
http://pennyschallenges.blogspot.com - Bird Day (include a bird in the design)
http://audsentimentschallengeblog.blogspot.com use any sentiment but you must use your scraps
http://cinspirations.blogspot.com - With Thanks