BLUEBIRD TWO WAYS

Anyone who has been following my blog for any amount of time already knows that I love fussy cutting. That means that one of my favorite techniques to do is paper piecing.

If you don't know what paper piecing is, here goes: It's when you have a stamp that is outlined, like in a coloring book. You stamp the image first on a piece of white cardstock. Then you stamp the image again on a suitable piece of Designer Series Paper. "Suitable" is a design that isn't too overwhelming. Ideally the design isn't too large either. And light enough in color that you can see any details of the stamping on it.

For this first card sample, I did paper piecing. I stamped the darling old bluebird on white cardstock. Then, searching through my extensive stash of DSP scraps, I located designs and colors that I thought would work well. I then stamped the bird FOUR more times, once on each of the four pieces of DSP I'd chosen, the blue for the bird's back, the rusty for his belly, a woodgrain brown for the branch, even a gray for his beak and feet.

I then fussy cut the portions of the bird and branch that I'd stamped onto DSP. Next step was to carefully match these same pieces to the original version stamped on white cardstock, adhering them in place. I did leave the lower half of his belly the white of the cardstock. I suppose I could have found a white DSP with a small design. But I opted to keep it white.

After everything was in its place, I went to work fussy cutting the entire bird.

A close-up of the fussy cut bird:

The second version of the card incorporates a more traditional way of coloring the bird. I colored him in with Stampin' Blends in Light and Dark Seaside Spray, Light and Dark Soft Suede, Light Calypso Coral and Dark Smoky Slate.

Of course, once this little guy was colored, I fussy cut him too.

A close-up of  the colored version of the card:

Between the two cards, there are some similarities. The background paper I used on both cards was a black and white DSP design. I colored the large flowers the same for both cards, but changed up the blues to match more readily the variations between the colored and the paper pieced bird. 

The other similarity is the lovely white piece the bird rests upon with Stampin' Dimensionals. Before mounting the bluebird, I ran each of the labels through my embossing machine inside an embossing folder to give it a little bit of a foliage feel.

For the card bases, I mounted the Stampin' Blends bluebird onto Seaside Spray (a moment of silence for the retirement of this wondrous color), and the paper pieced guy went onto a piece of Just Jade cardstock.

Have you ever tried paper piecing? In reading my directions and the way I went about it, it probably seems to be quite a lot of work. It is a little bit, but I adore the looks of the technique.

Do you have a favorite between the two cards?

Bluebird

Smiles.