Night Owl

When I’m feeling a bit low on crafting mojo, I like to follow a tutorial.  It takes some of the pressure off, not having to think about colours and composition.  One of my teamies on the Visible Image DT made this card for the VI blog (here’s the link to her card) a few weeks ago and I loved it!

To start, I smooshed Weathered Wood and Iced Spruce Distress Inks onto my craft mat and sprayed with water, then pressed my card into the ink repeatedly until the card was covered.  This would form the texture and colour for the silver birch tree background.

For the trees, I used the Forest stencil and blended Chipped Sapphire, Prize Ribbon, and Dusty Concord Distress Oxides through the stencil.  Then I made the bushes in the foreground by stamping the branch from the Night Owl stamp set using Versafine Clair Nocturne ink.

To create atmosphere, I then spattered Dr pH Martin Bleedproof white ink and gold paint all over the panel. 

I actually made 6 cards so next was the owl focal image.  I tried out brown and black ink but preferred the black, which was clear heat-embossed.  I added a little brown to one of the owls but just added some grey to the others to make snowy owls.  For the first owl, I cut along the edge of the owl but it was extremely fiddly so for the rest, I went around the edge of the owl with a dark blue pen to match the background then trimmed the owls leaving a narrow border.

The cards were finished with a gold heat-embossed sentiment and backed with a rectangle edged with the same gold paint used earlier.  The owls were attached using thin foam tape and then the panel mounted on a DL card blank.

Thanks for the inspiration, Nicola!  I enjoyed making these and was very happy with the finished cards.