A Little Bird Told Me

Hello, well I have to confess that I haven't been crafting as much as I would normally at this time of year but I was hoping to move house before Christmas and suitably packing etc in preparation. Unfortunately I will not be moving until the new year but my thinking now is new year new start. Then my car broke and needed mending and I have started a new job oh and preparing for a family visit before Christmas. So much going on and something had to give and it was my crafting that took a back seat, and I do miss it. I was really glad for an opportunity to a blog project for Little Claire using this fantastic steam punk/zentangle digi stamp, it was a real joy to get back into my craft room and I hope that in the new year when I have moved house I will be able to make more time for my crafting and blogging.

I use Serif Craft Artist as my graphics program and if you have this program you can follow the step by step instructions below. If you do not have this graphics program you will still be able to print the digi stamp image but your instructions for achieving this may be different.

what you will need:
Little Claire digi Book Owl stamp
Little Claire A Little Bird Told Me stamp set
Inkylicious Latin Script stamp
Tim Holtz Alterations Tattered Florals die
die cutting machine
Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Ink & Cut n Dry foam
Tim Holtz Bundled Sage Distress Ink
14.7cm x 14.7cm cream base card
craft card
cream linen printable card
page from a book
green & red card scraps
colouring in implements of your choice
ring binder hole punch
1.5cm Hobby House dark red gingham ribbon
scissors

Load your printer with the cream linen printable card.
Open your Serif Craft Artist graphics program on your computer.
Select Blank Project from the Get Started section of the Start Up Wizard.
Select A4 from the Page Setup.
Select Done from the Digikit Browser.
You will now be taken to a screen with a representation of an A4 work sheet on it.
Click on the Insert tab in the tool bar, select Photo from the drop down box, select From File from the drop down box.
Now you will be taken to a browser box which will allow you to find the file where you have stored the Little Claire Book Owl image.
Select the image and click on the Open button at the bottom of the Insert Photo(s) box.
You will now be taken back to your work sheet and if you move your cursor to within the work sheet you will find it appears as a cross with a hashed box underneath, left click and at the same time drag down to the right and your image will appear.
You now need to re size the image so make sure that the ruler bars which run along the top and left hand side of the work area are in cm.
Left click on the ruler at the left hand side and drag (a red line will appear) the line until it reaches 9cm.
Click on the digi image and a blue box will appear, a grey box with cross hares is shown in the top left corner outside the blue box, click on the cross hares and drag the image to the far left of the work sheet so that the left edge of the branch is butted up to the edge of the work sheet.
Re size the image by clicking on the white square at the bottom right corner of the blue box and make the right hand leaf at the end of the branch touch the red guide line.
Move the image to the centre of the work sheet by clicking on the grey  cross hares at the top left of the blue box and drag the image to where you want it.
You are now ready to print off the image so select File from the toolbar, select Print from the drop down box, select the Print button at the bottom of the Print box.

THAT IS THE COMPUTER STUFF OVER, NOW TIME TO START CRAFTING..........

Cut the image to size making sure that it is 8mm from the right hand leaf to the cut line, 4cm from the left hand branch to the cut line, 1cm from the bottom leaf to the cut line and 6cm from the right ear to the cut line.
Tear a piece of paper (this torn line is going to be a mask for the shaded part of the card) and secure the paper to the linen card making sure that the edge of the tear buts up to the end of the branch.
Using Tim Holts Vintage Photo Distress Ink and the Cut n Dry foam apply a light shade to the exposed left hand side of the linen card.
Using the Inkylicious \latin Script stamp and Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Ink stamp the words onto the exposed linen card to make it look like a page from a book.
Remove the mask.
Shade the edge of the remaining linen card with the Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

Colour in the image.

Cut a piece of the Hobby House ribbon and make a V cut in the right hand side of the ribbon.
Stick the ribbon onto the linen card.

Using the Little Claire A Little Bird Told Me stamps and the Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Ink stamp the sentiments onto the linen card.

Mat and layer the linen topper onto craft card.
Stick the craft card and topper onto the cream base card.

Using the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die cut one flower from green card.
Shade the edges of the flower using Tim Holts Bundled Sage Distress Ink.
Cut the petals towards the centre of the flower with scissors and shape the flower.
Cut a  flower using a piece of paper from a book and the smaller of the Tim Holts Tattered Florals flowers.
Shade the edges of the flower with the Vintage Photo Distress Ink, shape the flower and stick on top of the green flower.
Punch a circle from a scrap of red card using the ring binder punch and bevel the circle.
Stick the red circle onto the centre of the flower and stick the flower onto the card.

Cut out 7 leafs by hand from the green card.
Tint the edges of the leaves with the Bundled Sage Distress Ink.
Shape the leaves and stick over the leaves which have been printed.