Flying by to say Hi - Greeting Card

It's been a rough couple of months around here...I got laid off from work, and while I knew it was coming, it came a lot sooner and lasted a lot longer than I'd anticipated. This took a good deal of money out of our budget, making Christmas really hard. Now, my whole family caught the flu and have been moping around for the last week. And of course, all of this only added to my own emotional distress, bringing me way down. As I've entered "The Change of Life" my hormones have changed and my usual antidepressant medication has started working less and less. One of the reasons I make cards is to stave off the depression and keep myself busy. I share all of this because I know others suffer with this same affliction, and in my experience, knowing that others are struggling on the same path can sometimes make our own journey just a little bit easier. If you know of The Darkness, I'd love to learn if your crafts, and hearing from others helps you!

BUT--I'm moving on!

Today's cute little card is for the Sketch Saturday Challenge # 496, using a stamp from DigiStamp Boutique.

And I actually followed the sketch pretty darn closely, for once!

 

 I knew I wanted to use this specific piece of plaid paper from my Scrap Drawer, so tried to color the image so it wouldn't clash! Blue Birds and Poppies were some of my mother's favorites, so I kind of got inspired by that idea in my coloring. All the coloring was done with Copic markers, except the darkest shadowing of brown, which was done with a Spectrum Noir, because I didn't have a dark enough brown for the look I was going for! 

Bird House: G02, G05, G09, (hole): C9, W7, W5
Bird: B12, B21, YR18, (beak): E74
Flowers: R27, R29 / Leaves: YG03, YG06, YG25
Roof and Pole: E37, SN-EB5
Grass: YG17 / Outline: B000

 
The card did seem awfully plain, so I at least added some Spectrum Glitter pen to the bird house to add just a bit of shimmer. 

The sentiment is from an old rubber stamp set in my stash that I have no idea where it came from or who made it! LOL

I used Fun-Foam behind the design piece then placed it on a mat that matched the mat behind the main plaid DSP. I cut both the smaller mat and the DSP with a stitched rectangle die. The smaller die was not long enough for the design piece so I had to leave the end hanging off the cutting plate, then move it and cut the other end...this is a method I learned from the ingenious Jennifer McGuire!

I also added a light edging of Stampin Up "Pool Party" ink around the edge of the plaid DSP. In retrospect, I wish I had added the same distressing around the white design piece, as well...but once it was down, I didn't want to chance ripping things by pulling it up to add this. So there it is! LOL

As always, please head over to Sketch Saturday and see what the other designers came up with for this sketch, and visit DigiStamp Boutique to see the great images they have available!