Pairing Cheerful Chirps and Poppy ColorWheel Cardstock

Joan Bardee here sharing some colorful cards using the Cheerful Chirps Collection. Cheerful Chirps is all about fun and quirky birds and sayings that lift the spirit. As soon as I saw those birds, I thought of using Poppy ColorWheel Cardstock. Poppy is one of my favorite colors. It’s a warm shade of red and evokes happy, perfect for cheerful birds, as well as love-themed and Christmas cards. I buy it and run out of it all the time!

SENDING CHEERFUL CHIRPS

Who can look at this parrot and not smile?

• Selected Cosmic Sky (darker bright blue), Poppy (red), and Carrot (orange) as the main color palette, with accents of Cascade (medium blue), Bellini (pale orange), Raven (black), and white. It’s bold and fun. Bonus points if you can find the tiny bit of Windy (pale blue) cardstock on the card.
• Die-cut the bird and foliage from Flying High Etched Dies as shown. Cut all the pieces for the bird twice to make a sturdier bird.
• Trimmed Cosmic Sky cardstock to A2 (5.5” x 4.25”) and made an A2 card with Cosmic Sky.
• Stamped a greeting from Spread Your Wings Sentiments Clear Stamp Set with Versamark ink and heat embossed with white embossing powder. (The white in the sentiment and the enamel dots give the eye a break from all the bright, bold colors in the rest of the card.)
• Assembled as shown, using Bearly Arts Glue and Small White Foam Adhesive Squares. The squares give the bird a lot of dimension.
• Added White Enamel Dots to the bird’s eye, the center of the flowers, and the card.
• Glued the panel to the Cosmic Sky A2 card.

TIP: Take a close look at all the dies in a set. The “flower” in this card uses a die that looks similar to a green plant known as Rhapis or Lady Palm. Using dies in ways perhaps unintended by the designer stretches our supplies. TIP: Tree branches and leaves aren’t blue in nature. But this set is not designed to create a realistic image of a bird. We can use our imagination to create any scene we want.

PRETTY IN LOVE

• This card is sweet, so I chose a softer color palette, Windy (pale blue), Poppy, and white, with just a touch of Raven (black).
• Die cut all the pieces, except the leaves, twice and adhered together with Bearly Arts Glue. Die cut the red swing the birds are sitting on 3 times to make it extra sturdy.
• Trimmed Windy ColorWheel Cardstock to A2 and stamped another sentiment from Spread Your Wings Sentiments with red ink. Trimmed 1/8” off each side.
• Adhered together as shown with glue, although I used foam squares to pop up the flowers.
• Note that the birds should be adhered to the panel first. Then glue the swing on top of the birds. This is because the birds are behind the bar of the swing with only the black feet in front of the swing. (Yes, I did it wrong the first time.)
• Adhered Red Color Essential Gems to the flowers.
• Adhered the panel to an A2 side fold white card.
• If I had to do it over again, I’d stamp and emboss the sentiment in white – I thought the red sentiment would balance the card, but a white sentiment would tie in with the other white elements on the card. Is the red sentiment a “mistake?” No, it’s just an option that might not be the best!

Tip: I usually trim the panel on which I am going to stamp (or hot foil) a sentiment a little larger than the panel I plan to use. This way, if I stamp the sentiment crooked or not exactly in the center (it happens), I can trim the panel so that the sentiment is in the right place. Tip: This card is an example of a symmetrical design – each half divided vertically is a mirror of the other half, except for the sentiment. Symmetry creates a calm balanced design, which goes well with these darling love birds.

FREE HUGS

Oscar is all over the place in this card, handing out free hugs for the asking! I love a grid design, and he seemed ready to cooperate.

• Selected 2 shades of yellow – Tuscan and Beeswax, and 2 shades of red, Poppy and Pomegranate. Just a touch of Raven and white.
• Trimmed the Tuscan and Beeswax cardstock in panels so that all 4 would meet in the center as shown. Adhered the 4 pieces together on the back side with Best Ever Craft Tape.
• Using the largest (4.125” x 5.375”) die in the A-2 Matting Basics A Card Creator Etched Dies set, die cut the panel. This is slightly smaller than an A2 card, but I used it for my base of the card because I did not want a border on this card, and it works fine.
• Note: the spot where all 4 pieces of cardstock meet must be in the center of the panel.
• Die-cut the bird pieces and assembled each bird as shown with glue, except for the beaks and wings, which are adhered with foam squares.
• Die-cut the feet of the bird 8 times so that I could create 4 sturdy feet.
• Die-cut the crest of the bird 12 times so that each one was 3 layers thick.
• Die-cut the sentiment 3 times.
• To save time and energy, I die-cut multiple pieces at the same time.
• Adhered the birds and sentiment with glue to the panel and added White Enamel Dots.
• Created a card base with Beeswax cardstock and glued the panel to the card base.

That’s 3 ways to use Poppy ColorWheel Cardstock with Cheerful Chirps. They are a bit wild, but I really love how they turned out. Thanks for reading along, and thanks to Spellbinders for creating such beautiful and fun products.

Other supplies

White cardstock