Birdcage Card

I had brought the Cricut cartridge Straight From the Nest a while back, it has a lot of nice features on it especially the corner feature.  I had not used it in a while but when the sketches came out at RAQ's Challenge this week on the Cricut message board, I went straight to this cartridge.  If you have a Cricut and your are looking for some inspiration or just have fun stop by and join in, there is a bunch of great ladies there.  I will tell you that I feel like my card making has improved ten fold since I started to do these challenges a year or two ago.  We love new people.

On to my card, the sketch sample had a birdcage on it and I knew I had the Mariposa DCWV stack that would go well with a birdcage cut, my problem was picking which paper from this beautiful stack.

  The card measures 4 x 8 inches, which if a fun size to work with, the only thing is I had to make an envelope to fit it.  Business size 10 envelope is a bit too long.  The birdcage is cut at about 2 3/4 inches and has 3 layers, a shadow, the cage and another layer that is part of the cage area, oh and of course the bird :).  The entire birdcage was cut from white cardstock.  The red part I colored using Distressed Ink Fired Brick and then sprayed it with Scarlet Glimmer Mist.  The shadow I sprayed with charcoal Glimmer Mist and the bird I inked it yellow, sprayed it with Glimmer Mist and then covered it with Glossy Accents.  I love Glimmer Mist, as you can tell so this has a lot of subtle shimmer.
The top layer of the cage kind of rolled slightly when I sprayed it so that is was the shape of a dome, which was kind of cool.  I cut the bar part across the opening (the bar the bird sits on) then when I glued that piece on top I glued just along the edges so it looks 3D and set the bird inside on the perch, oh yeah that is what that thing is called.  LOL

I "hung" the birdcage from a piece of gold chain like cord.  The corners were also cut from Straight From the Nest out of white and sprayed with the charcoal.  The happy birthday is actually a sticker, brackets around the sentiment were cut from Alphallious cartridge.   I struggled with what sentiment to use, I was going to make it a sympathy card to have it one hand but it just did not look right to me, so a birthday card is always safe and will always get used.
 I also linked this card up to Make-it-Monday  challenge, where every Monday there is an anything goes challenge.
Well I am so glad you came and checked out my blog, I would love to read your comment.