Cooking With Cricut Challenge: Swirls, Twirls & Flourishes

Our Design Team challenge this week at Cooking With Cricut was to use swirls, twirls or flourishes on our project.  I just recently purchased the fabulous Cindy Loo Cricut cartridge from eBay.  It is my new favorite cartridge -- just warning you . . . 'cause you're gonna be seeing it a lot!  LOL!

There are tons of flourishes, swirls, twirls, flowers and other wonderful images along with a really cute font on this cartridge.  And I love the bird and birdhouse . . . and the deer is adorable . . . and . . . well you get the idea!

The inspiration for my card came from the recent influx of birds at our bird feeder.  We have a wonderful glassed in porch on our house that looks out on a heavily wooded Audubon Preserve.  My Mom gave our six year old daughter a bird feeder for Christmas and Dee hung it up on a black, wrought-iron hanger right outside the porch.  Now I know that some of you are saying, "That's a strange gift for a 6 year old."  True.  But not this 6 year old.  Ever since Demi could walk (at 11 months old), she would always make a bee line for my Mom's bird books.  Mom loves birds and loves to know "who" they are and so she has several field guides to birds of North America that live on her coffee table.  And Demi has always been infatuated by them.  So year before last, for her birthday, Mom gave Demi her very own copy of the North American Field Guide to Birds.  She immediately declared that it was her favorite gift!  So a bird feeder was naturally the next step.

My card base is Bazzill brown and is cut to 5 1/2" x 8 1/2".  I then matted a 5" x 8" piece from the Die Cuts With A View Mediterranean paper pack on top.  It is an embossed paper (I had some scraps left over from a client's baby shower I did recently). 

The flourish is from page 40 in the Cindy Loo cartridge handbook and is cut at 5 1/4" wide from the same Bazzill brown.

The bird is cut at 2" wide and is cut using scraps from my stash.  I used some iridescent Stickles on his wings and a bit of 3-D Crystal Lacquer on his eye to make it shiny.

The bird house is cut at 2 1/2" high and I used scraps from the stash for this one too.  The dark brown is a Bazzill as is the pink -- it's called Pinkini.  I also used some Stickles and 3-D Crystal Lacquer on the bird house.  A leftover piece of pale blue yarn tied into a bow serves as the "hanger."

"Thank You" was cut at 4 3/4" wide from a pale green Bazzill scrap and I inked the edges with a dark brown ink pad.  I then coated it with 3-D Crystal Lacquer. 

It's easier to see it in this close up photo. 

On the inside I stamped a cute bird and branch image. I cut a piece of white card stock to 5" x 8" and then stamped it using the same dark brown stamp pad I used on the front. This stamp came from my local Michael's -- scored it out of one of the $1 bins.

Our bird-loving daughter immediately spotted this on my craft table when she arrived home from school today.  "Mom, this is sooooo CUTE!  It would make a great card for my teacher.  She loves birds, too!"

So I guess I'll be putting it away until Teacher Appreciation week in May -- and now that I know her teacher likes birds I'm sure I'll find some other items to "birdify" for her gift!

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my project this week.  Leave me a note and let me know you were here -- I love reading your comments!  And if you have a blog, please leave me the address . . . I'd love to come and visit!

Make sure you fly on over to Cooking With Cricut and see what my fellow Design Team Chefs have "swirled" and "twirled" together for your view pleasure!

~ Jen

P.S.  Mark your calendars for Cooking With Cricut's  Easter-themed "Bunny Hop" on Saturday, April 9th!  You won't want to miss it!