Little Black Bird AGAIN?

I seem to have a thing about black birds lately, but why not? They are the first garden voice I hear in the morning and the very last of the evening, well into the twilight, in this suburban environment. The magpies used to run them a close second, but since several quite large eucalypts were removed from a nearby block last Autumn, the magpies have sadly moved on and are not so present as they were before the tree removal..

in card making I have been playing with frames lately in various forms, and this one came together today rather nicely.
When all my equipment was moved I realised that a lot of my stamps are rather under utilised and made a bit of a commitment to try to use them more productively.
Michelle from My Paper Addiction has a neat little folded journal she makes from a single sheet of paper, several of which she had stamped randomly with many different stamps to form a small colouring book.
 I am thinking of adopting her idea and propose giving the cover of one of my new "in progress" journals the same stamping treatment sometime real soon!

Enough of that, I have another birthday or two coming up quite soon and so I made this card thinking it might be an option for one of those occasions...

This card is a 5 x 7 inch card. I used a thicker than usual piece of fun foam to back the top layer in order to give the card better stability and a good depth to the recess. I placed the front onto a heavy black cardstock card base so the "shadow" effect inside the frame was accentuated and there is no visible access to under the frame.

This stamp set is an older TH called Small Oddities. I have hardly used it despite the interesting pieces it contains and thought it would be just what I wanted to develop my thoughts for this card. I do like how it turned out and will play with this theme a bit more...

I heat embossed the bird and gave him a little black enamel eye. I layered up the branch for stability and added some gilding paste over the text background, I also gilded the edges of some of the distress ink and water splattered leaves, for texture and light reflection. The larger leaves are glued beneath the branch with the smaller ones on top, to increase the illusion of dimension. The bird has a couple of foam squares behind it to keep it attached at the same level as the branch.

While the card is a little thicker than normal, I made the envelope using the EPB measurements of five and a half inches by seven and a half, the next size up from the standard five by seven inch that I would normally make. It is a perfect fit.

Well that's it for this morning, I have a little gardening I want to do while the sun is out.
Bye now,
​Di