These Songs I Sing, I Sing For You

Inspired by  pair of new artsy, nature-theme images from Stampendous (specifically Bird Frame and Dragonfly Vine), I set out with today's card to make something a little more artsy/collage-y than my normal style. I stamped the beautiful Bird Frame image in Walnut Stain Distress Ink onto a piece of neutral patterned paper from Basic Grey's Nook & Pantry paper collection, trimmed it out, inked the edges in Frayed Burlap, Vintage Photo, and Walnut Stain Distress inks, and then roughed up the edges with a distressing tool.

The image includes a nest down at the bottom, but I wanted to make my own nest embellishment to go over top. I'll tell you real quick how I did that. I punched a circle, made one cut from the perimeter to the center and then overlapped the cut edges to form a very shallow cone. Then I rolled some hemp into a nest shape, filled the cone with hot glue, and pressed the hemp nest down into it. I also added a few short pieces of burlap string sticking out around the edges, so it would be messier looking and more realistic. Inside, I glued three pearls for the eggs. Here's a closer look:

I arranged a scrap of cardboard, some burlap, burlap string, tickets, and torn music paper as a background for the image and then adhered the whole collage to a pretty light blue paper from Melissa Frances. The edges of the background paper and the cardboard have been lightly painted with white acrylic paint and then aged with a combination of distress inks and a distressing tool.

The sentiment was inspired by a sentiment I saw in an older Stampington & Co. publication. It reads, "These songs I sing, I sing for you." It just melts my heart!  Is there a song with those lyrics, does anyone know? I really wanted to put the first half on the outside of this card and the rest on the inside, but artful arrangement of title collages is evidently not my thing -- or maybe I just don't have the right supplies. I went with plan B and added just the word "sing" out of chipboard letters from The Girls' Paperie. Right now the card is blank inside, but I'll be putting the full sentiment on a decorated inside, just as soon as I figure out how I want to decorate the inside.

Thanks so much for visiting!


Stamps: Bird Frame (Stampendous)
Paper: Papertrey Rustic White, Melissa Frances dp, Basic Grey dp
Ink: Ranger Old Paper, Brushed Corduroy, Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain Distress Inks
Accessories: distressing tool, hemp cord, Kaisercraft pearls, Prismacolor pencils, white acrylic paint, burlap, tickets (from Michelle Wooderson's etsy shop), cardboard box, The Girls' Paperie chipboard letters, old music paper, Papertrey buttons, May Arts burlap string