Vintage Mother Bird with Nest - Friends with Flair 6-19

"Do you see that kitten chasing so prettily her own tail?  If you could look wih her eyes, you might see her surrounded with hundreds of figures performing complex dramas, with tragic and comic issues, long conversations, many characters, many ups and downs of fate."

                                                                                     --------Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hi, Friends....

I am here today with my Unity Friends with Flair project.  I felt the urge to make a fancy card this time, so I played around with some fun products and used dies to make pretty things for this summery nature-inspired card.

I love heat embossing of all kinds...in fact I am crazy about heat embossing.  It is my favorite technique.  I did an emboss resist for the lovely bird/nest image from Unity - Love, using Versamark Ink and clear embossing powder on a scrap of patterned paper.  I love the effect of the pattern showing through the embossed image!!

I also heat embossed using my clear Ranger - Ultra-Thick Embossing Enamel.  Oh, my goodness....I LOVE this stuff!!  This makes a gooey globby glossy gob of goop on everything it touches.  Just my kind of thing!!  lol....  :)  To me, this turns projects into instant mixed media because the large particle size is not really used to emboss in the traditional sense.  It is like a medium of its own.  

I used it on my green background by Versamarking through a thrift store stencil and layering the UTEE on.  When it liquefies upon heating, you can gently push it around with the air flow from your heat gun.  It adds some super-duper shine and texture, too.  And.....(this is important if you craft the way I do!)....if I accidentally touch it before it is all the way set and leave a fingerprint, I can zap it again with my heat gun and it remelts and fixes itself!!  Hooray!!!  :)  What is not to love about this wonderful product???? 

However, what I was really excited about doing with my UTEE was coating my die-cut flower with it.  I cut several different scraps of patterned paper with my Spellbinders - Heartfelt Creations - Majestic Blooms die set.  I did some texture stamping with a Unity grab bag leaf stamp and Antique Linen Distress Ink.  Then I Versamarked the three pieces and heat embossed with UTEE to get a glossy rain-washed or dewy effect.  LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!  You can see it in the photo below.  While it was still warm and pliable I could shape the petals, too.  How fab is that???!!!! 

 
I will mention one other special technique I used.  My butterfly was a little too bright and too green for the other colors on the card, so I toned it down and defined the veins in the wings with Distress Ink in Antique Linen, Tumbled Glass, and Crushed Olive.  Then I brushed on some Perfect Pearls Pigment Powder in Mint to give it that iridescent shimmer that real butterflies have.  The inks were still a bit damp, so it set the powder without additional misting.  Love this pretty sheen!!!




Other products used include:
Spellbinders - Lace Doily Motifs die set
Sizzix - Fancy Labels Dies
Want 2 Scrap - Adhesive Pearls
Misc. scraps from my stash (K&Co. and DCWV)


The effect I was hoping to achieve with this card was of a birdnest hidden away in a leafy arbor.  I love how the tendrils of my swirly Memory Box - Gwyneth Flourish die cuts spring up when I use a light-weight cardstock.  The 3-D effect makes this look even more like the nest is in a secret place.  Sweet!

That's all for this card.  It was fun letting my alchemist alter-ego out while I was playing with the different products I used.  I hope you like the results of my experimenting.  :)  

<3
Janis

Thank you for the honor of entering this card in the following challenges:
1.  Unity Friends with Flair Link Up
2.  Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Favorite Product or Technique (Heat Embossing)
3.  Wow! Embossing Powder June Challenge - Summer
4.  Blog Quick Quotes Friday Challenge #52 - Use Handmade Flowers
5.  Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Don't Cut, Just Paste  (I used UTEE for a thick texture product similar to paste.)
6.  Butterfly Spot Challenge - F is for Flowers
7.  Pixie's Snippets Playground Week 181-182 - Use snippets  (All die cuts were made from scraps.  Hooray!!)
8.  Unruly Paper Arts - June Art Quest 2 - The Great Outdoors