Purple, Blue and Silver Henbury Lane Bluebird

I wanted to make a card like this as soon as I saw this cute stamp. I knew I wouldn't be able to colour it as well as the illustration on the wooden block, but thought it would look nice in a sort of silhouette way. So, this is the result of my imaginings.

To begin with, the Henbury Lane Bluebird stamp from Papermania was stamped using ColorBox Midnight Blue pigment ink and heat embossed using Personal Impressions Pearl Violet embossing powder. The image was then die cut using a Labels 1 Nestabilities die.

The edges of the panel were then distressed using Tim Holtz Weathered Wood, Faded Jeans and Dusty Concord distress inks and then highlighted using a spritz of Cosmic Shimmer Silver Mica Mist spray. This doesn't really show up in the scanned image, but looks pretty good in real life.

This is the first time I've used mica sprays and I love the effect it gives.

This was then matted onto a panel of purple card, also die cut using the Nestabilities die.

A panel of the lilac distressed-effect paper from the HOTP Icy Rainbow Cardmaker's Creative pack was punched along the edge using the Martha Stewart Double Loops border punch and then distressed with the three distress inks and then highlighted with the Cosmic Shimmer spray.

I have to say that if I was to do this again, I'd recommend distressing the edges first and then punching - the distressing damaged the punched edge a little due to its fragile nature.

This distressed and punched panel was then matted onto a panel of the purple card and adhered to the left of the card blank.

The image panel was then matted over the patterned paper to the right of the card.

A white Prima paper flower was distressed with the Dusty Concord ink and the Cosmic Shimmer spray. A large purple Papermania brad was added through the centre and the flower was attached over the bottom left corner of the image panel.

Here are the blog challenges that I am entering this card into:

• The Corrosive Challenge - #92 - Things That Move
• I Did It Creations - #31 - Surprise Me
• One Stitch At A Time - #41 - Glitz It Up!
• Allsorts - #80 - Monochrome
• Alphabet - E is for Embossing
• Hodge Podge - #4 - Anything Goes
• Sassy Studio Designs - #48 - Monochromatic
• StampInsanity - Challenge Yourself/Try Something New
• Inktegrity - #24 - Anything Goes
• Fab 'n' Funky - #50 - Going With The Flow
• Gingersnap Creations - #80 - Vintage Hues
• Anything Goes - #26 - Animals
• Artful Inkables - #34 - Die Cuts/Punches
• A Spoonfull Of Sugar - #131 - Anything Goes
• Papertake Weekly - Cut It Out
• Everybody Art - #118 - Use Shapes
• Scrap-Creations - Blue and White/Silver
• Incy Wincy - #69 - Blue and White
• Pollycraft - #71 - Feeling Blue
• Simon Says Stamp and Show - Distress Inks