No Caged Birds Card

It may be because I came from a Women’s Lib era, or my years pioneering in a traditional man’s job, but I was driven to create this card after hearing a story of abuse recently. It’s my own way of showing support to someone suffering. But I think it could also be used as encouragement to someone stepping out of predefined roles. I, again, went out on my own limb, to create this collage (I guess you’d call it that) style card. I’d be interested in honest feedback whether it’s worth honing my skills in creating this type of card. (Again, this was just a quick hack).

I started by pulling out the girl from Unity’s May 2018 SMAK kit and the cage from Unity’s She Sprouted Wings kit.  I stamped the girl in Potting Soil archival ink. I then masked her off and stamped the cage in Coffee archival ink. I then looked around for background stamps and I started by stamping the large fleur-de-lis type stamp from the Never kit using a combo of red and browns (it came out a little too dark, but I think it’s okay). I then stamped the No Caged Birds sentiment from the She Sprouted Wings kit using a softer Gina K rose colored stamped. I used the same ink to stamp the script from Lit it Go and Focus kit twice. I then pulled the wire cage/net stamp from Blow Your Mind kit to fill in gaps. To add texture I used a Tim Holtz flourish stencil and a deep gold Bo Bunny paste to add 3 impressions using a palette knife. 

Now I was ready to start painting. I began spraying the edges with a pale pink Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist making sure I masked off the girl. I then dried that and added an overall pale orange red watercolor all over. I then decided I wanted to create a collage type card and started dividing up the areas, adding borders and changing up the colors a little using watercolors. I deepened the colors behind the flourishes. I then decided to spray another deeper gold Tattered Angels Glimmer mist around the edges, again masking off the girl and drying it all afterwards. I added dots from the Itty Bitty Backgrounds to the No Caged Birds section.

I painted the girl, added red to the bird and went on to the sentiment. The sentiment came from Aria girl. I stamped that with a combo of the Gina K rose and brown archival inks. I die cut that and a piece of scrap Kraft paper with a Sissix die. I then colored the Kraft paper with a Glimmer rose colored chalk writer...so it’s not flat. I went around the outside of the sentiment with the same writer and mounted it on the Kraft paper.

To pull the card together, I distressed the edges with Vintage Photo, added eyelash fringe at the bottom, used foam tape to attach it the cardbase, attached the trimmed off sentiment, and added sticky crystals. I’m pretty happy that it came together okay for being so ad hoc. But, again, let me know your thoughts on this style! Well, happy crafting to you and stop by again sometime!