Growing in Unity December Blog Hop

Hello! I'm super excited to be hopping with some very talented ladies that have participated with Growing in Unity the last couple of months. 

If you've been hopping, you arrived here from Amanda Garrett's  blog and you've reached the end of our hop. No pressure there being the end of the hop... yikes!! Haha! Anywho, onto my card... 

I have a sweet friend who likes birds and I wanted to make her Christmas card using these particular birds. I just love these sweet birds, but I also love the scene behind the birds so I wanted to make the card kind of like a window. I sure hope she likes it!

I started with a kraft card base that I stamped the birdy image from the Chick Time kit using Memento tuxedo black ink. I colored the image with prismacolor pencils and then set that aside. I grabbed another piece of kraft card stock to stamp the lovely pine cones and branches on from the Winter Blessings kit. First, I wanted to make sure that the pine cones and branches framed the scene so I laid the card with the birds on my grid paper and marked some general measurements for my 'window area'. I then laid the 4-1/4" x 5-1/2" piece of kraft card stock in the same part of the grid and lightly marked off the area with pencil. 

Then came the fun part, stamping the branches... I stamped them just twice - once in each corner and colored them using copic markers. I grabbed another piece of kraft card stock and stamped the pine cones several times. I cut out my 'window' by hand fussy cutting around the branches. I colored in the pine cones using copic markers and then I wanted to add a touch of gold so I used a Ranger Emboss It pen and then heat embossed some Ultra Fine Antique Gold embossing powder. Those pine cones look so cool in person. I wish the picture showed it better. I fussy cut the pine cones and adhered them and then I cut off the edges that went over the card. I popped up the pine cone and branch piece over top of the card base using dimensionals. All that was left was the sentiment... I originally planned on doing a banner with the Merry Christmas sentiment from the Cheerful Prancing kit, but it was much bigger than I anticipated so I ended up fussy cutting around it and adding it to the fence under the birds. It almost looks like the birds hung a sign on the fence. Haha! Well, that's my card for this fun hop. I sure hope you liked it!

Like I mentioned above, I am the end of the hop so if you happened to miss any blogs be sure to check out the hop list below AND don't forget to comment on each blog for a chance to win a prize package from Unity Stamp Co.

~ Blog Hop List ~

Unity Blog

Denise Sayers
Lori Simonson
Shannon Edwards 
Amber Sheaves 
Kim Chong

Angela Bode 
MariLynn DeGroot 
Amanda Rhodes 
Paula McClane 
Sue Nagata 

Amanda Garrett 
Crystal O. Minkler  <--- you're here

Thanks for stopping by!

See ya next time.

~ Crystal