Has Spring Sprung?

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know that I am a big fan of Jennifer McGuire.  I think her how-to videos are some of the very best out there on YouTube.  Educated as an Engineer, she automatically thinks about how to make everything work.  Earlier this week she made the card you see on the left.  I absolutely loved it so I set out to try and make something similar with items I already had although I confess, I really want those Paper Smooches Bird Houses in my tool box!  I have an older die that creates a birdhouse from Quickutz that I have never used before so this was the perfect opportunity to use it along with my WPLUS9 Folk Art Floral Designer Die.

I started with a 4.25 x 5.5 Arches (pronounced Ar-Chez) 140# Hot Pressed Watercolor Paper.  Hot pressed paper is smoother than cold pressed paper. I knew I was going to be using a lot of water for my background and the 140# holds more water.  I have quite a bit of this watercolor paper left from my most recent watercolor class. It's more cream than white but for a background that was going to be covered completely, it didn't matter.  Using my Gansai Tambi Watercolors in color #56 - Marine Green, I very loosely gave the panel an overall wash of color using a quite a bit of water. I set that aside to let it dry as I knew I would be adding a second color to the mix. For the next layer I used Finetec Mica Watercolor Paint in Inca Gold.  I used a lot of water once again and let the gold paint pool where it wanted to and allowed it to dry naturally.  By doing it this way, the gold layers on top of the green in a marble-y looking way.

I die cut the birdhouse from several scraps of the same Arches Watercolor Paper and cut it again from White Fun Foam.  Jennifer used 6 layers glued one on top of the other for her die cuts to give the thick chipboard appearance but I figured I'd use fun foam as my underneath layer and save a few steps.  I also cut the two birds from the WPLUS9 Folk Art Floral Designer Die using the watercolor paper but without the fun foam. The birdhouse die includes the shutters for the window but I chose not to use them so that I could have my window open.  I adhered everything together using Ranger Multi Medium Matte.

I die cut the background panel with my absolute favorite Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangle Die in the largest size and started assembling everything together on a 4.25 x 5.25 top folding card base made from Papertrey Ink Stamper's Select White.  The little heart on the door is one of those extras from a previous cut that I keep to use later.  The "Hello" is Papertrey Ink's Noted Die.

I don't have any embroidery floss around so I used several strands of a Coats & Clarks Gold Metallic Thread for the hanger.  I secured that to the back of the watercolor panel using a piece of packing tape since that is what is on my desk at this moment.

The new Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge for this week is "Anything Goes" so I'll be entering this over there.  Thanks for stopping by today and I'll be back soon with another project.