CCM 110 Come Fly With Me

The challenge from Crafty Cardmakers this fortnight is Come Fly with Me. That could be bird images, or bird related images, such as bird cages/houses, a bird bath maybe, as your main focal image. You could even decorate an MDF birdhouse or as I did, create my own bird cage.

This post is picture heavy, sorry. I just couldn’t get a decent photograph no matter what I tried. Not to blow my own trumpet but this little bird cage is really pretty and I couldn’t get a single photograph to do it justice.

This started out with four diecuts from the Tim Holtz Birdcage die, cut from grungepaper.

I went over the diecuts with Seedless Preserve and Peacock Feather distress inks. Sadly those colours are just not showing up here, but you can see them in real life, although they are quite pale.
 
Then I ran the diecuts through a baroque embossing folder and gilded them with Pebeo Gilding Wax, which is probably why the DIs aren’t showing up in the pictures.
Except the bird of course! Although it might have made his feathers show, that’s something to bear in mind if I do another one. You can see the DIs on the bird though, but there I used Seedless Preserve, Dusky Concord, Stormy Sky and Walnut stain for his perch.

I glued it together around the edges and then set about hanging those dangly gems, my fingers were aching by the end, as I had to first remove them from the wire stems they were on and then add tiny jump rings to each of them and thread larger jump rings through to secure to the holes surrounding the bottom.
 
I had cut two of the bird, so I sandwiched him back to back and inserted a chain between his body and wrapped around the perch. Getting that bird to dangle in the midde of the cage so he had free movement, ie, beak or tail not jammed between one of the bars was a major headache. If I got him not to get stuck in the bars he was at an odd angle, but eventually I managed to sort it.
I finished off the top of the cage with 4 gorgeous turquoise gems, and then glued some tiny flowers randomly down the bars.
The chain by the way, is long enough to hang from something in my window, but of course you cannot take a photograph into the light so I had to double it over to hang on the stand just for the pictures, that’s why the chain looks a little scruffy.
Before I gilded it, and after I stuck all those gems in, I made the mistake of spraying it with spray and sparkle to make it look more like metal, which didn’t work, but coated all the gems in glitter. I would have changed them but they made my hands ache too much when I put them on in the first place!
I am entering this into the following:-
2 Sisters Challenge - #173 Embossing (please see above, diecuts were embossed)
Brown Sugar – #81 Use a Die Cut or Punch
Crafty Creations – #256 For the Birds
Dreamtime Designs – #3 New Technique (Never made a birdcage before!)
Ecclectic Ellapu – Anything But A Card
Feeling Crafty – #25 Dies and/or Punches
Quick Quotes – #36 Ink It Up
Stamping Sensations – Feb: Wings, Fantasy and Fiction
The Crafting Cafe – Feb: Embossing (please see above, diecuts were embossed)
The Kraftyhands Challenge – Feb: Spring Flowers