Prima A Victorian Christmas Bird House Card: Working With Scraps

Hello, Friends and Happy Sunday!  Today I have a charming little Victorian Christmas Bird House Card to share with you.  After making my Victorian Christmas Envelope Album, I had a few scraps of this lovely collection left on my work table.  Rather than tossing them or packing them away in the Land that Kathy forgot, I decided to turn them into a quick little card.  I thought you might enjoy knowing the tips and tricks I used along the way.

How to Create a Background From Scraps

What do you do with long, not too wide scraps of designer paper?  Well, one great way to use them up is to create what I call raised panels. I had several scraps that were all 1 1/2″ wide.  Here’s how I turned those scraps into a lovely background for my card.

• First, determine the size of the card base you will  need.  Since my strips were 1 1/2″ wide, a 5 1/2″ square card base gave me the room I needed to layer them up side by side.
• Next, trim your scraps so they are all the same height.  Mine are about 5″ tall.
• Then mat the scraps on slightly larger scraps of solid cardstock.  I used a lovely antique gold metallic paper.  This was also a scrap that I had tucked into the Victorian Christmas collection the last time I had used it.
• Now at this point, you can place dimensionals (foam tape, foam tabs or waste chipboard) on the backs of these panels to elevate them if you wish.  But since I knew I was adding a lot of dimension to my card with my embellishments, I did not do this.
• Cut a mat for your panels from a complementary solid cardstock.  I found this scrap of deep green suede paper in my stash.  Then I just adhered this whole assembly to my card front.

Working with a Small Focal Image

What do you do when you don’t have a large focal image for a card front?  For this card, I only had the small bird chipboard to use.  It’s only about 2″ x 3″ in size.  it looked pretty lonely on the card front.  So I had to build up elements around it to make it “fit” the card.

TIP: Look for embellishments that “fit” with your card theme.  Birds and botanicals go together beautifully.  So I paired up a little wood slice, berries, and greenery to add texture, dimension and presence to the card design.  The metal birdhouse also fit the theme.  And stars at Christmas are a classic choice.  Problem solved!

A Peek Inside

Here’s a look at the inside of the card.  Once again, I was able to use small scraps to line the pocket.

TIP:  Mind the Gap!  If your paper panels are too short for the card base, add a contrasting border to cover the empty space.  It looks like a designer element,

Create a little gift card wallet to tuck inside the pocket.  Use the off cut from the card base, and you’ve used up another scrap.  Hooray!

I hope I’ve shared some tips, tricks and ideas today that you will be able to use in your own crafty adventures.  If so, I’d love to hear from you in the comment section below.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cheerio,

kathy

SUPPLY LIST

Note: since this card is made with scraps and an older collection, there are a lot of products that I cannot link to.  Thanks for understanding!

• Ribbon
• Flower is from Prima Christmas in the Country (out of stock)
• Paper is Prima A Victorian Christmas (retired)
• Metal birdhouse and rusty jingle bells from Consumer Crafts (online store is closed)