BBTB2 Florals Embellished Flying Bird Challenge

Happy Monday, everyone! I'm pretty excited today because it was my turn to pick the challenge for BBTB2. While browsing through the manual of Florals Embellished, I fell in love with the beautiful birds, particularly the flying one on page 61. I immediately knew the "theme" for my card but it took me awhile to pull it all together. There are two different ways to cut the bird on Florals Embellished, the layers, or the silhouette. I chose the silhouette, but had a hard time choosing colors so I cut it several times in varying shades of blue and mixed and matched until I got a combo I liked. The dark body and outline are actually the negative cuts from that color but I likes the extra white border that gave me against the darker shadow. Now I've got lots more bird cuts that I can combine for other projects. The banner, from Happy Hauntings, had the word "caution" cut out of it, so I hid the contours and spelled out "dreams" using the font from Cindy Loo. I ended up cutting it 3 times (once with the letters, once in solid blue and once in solid white) and gluing the light blue behind the "dreams" layer and trimming the edges off to make it more dimensional. Because everything was pretty clean, I was afraid to ink it up, but I did use my Copics color CO to shadow the banner cuts slightly around the edges (although it doesn't show in the pix.

For the base, I welded two of the "doilies" from Cindy Loo and the shadow of the bird and shadow of the banner from Happy Hauntings. The shadow of the doily had different shaped scallops, so I had to hide all of the contours on the back of the card to get a solid scalloped square that matched the front.

Yeah, this turned out to be another fat one, alright. It started growing when I decided to give the wings multiple layers to simulate flight. There are 3 white layers to the bird, but they are all glued together at the body.

Two of the layers are glued together at the tail and lower wing and popped from the third and all 3 layers are separated on the top wing. The light blue embossed areas of the wings are glued near the body and popped near the edge for further dimension. I did the same for the shadows of the banner, popping all three layers through the center, but gluing two of the layers together at the ends to make it look more curved.

Notice when the card is open, the front is flush because I welded it all together, instead of just popping the elements on top. That way you don't see all the "mechanics". It also makes for a much sturdier base for all the dimension. Inside is the first verse of the poem "Dreams" by Langston Hughes, which is the inspiration for this piece. In case you can't read it, is says:

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

It reminds me that no matter how great the obstacles may be, it's our dreams that keep us alive. I intend to keep dreaming and believing, until they come true. xxD