Ridiculous robins

I make nearly all of my cards A6 size (14.8cm × 10.5cm): it’s a nice manageable size and is the most efficient use of A4 card. But once in a while, I decide to scale things up a bit. I’ve made a couple of larger cards already this Christmas for family, and this one for my mum makes three.

These oversized robins are, quite frankly, ridiculous, but they make me smile and I hope they’ll do the same for my mum. The trickiest part of this card was figuring out how to put the image on it — leaving it square meant there was a lot of white space to fill and, well, me and white space don’t really get on 🙂

So I had to take the plunge and fussy cut it. But rather than cut close in around all the edges, I created a circle slightly smaller than the birdies. It’s not the neatest circle, but I had coloured a roughly circular background before I decided to cut it out and that’s the line I had to follow.

I kept the rest of the design simple. After layering the robins over some gradient-coloured paper, I added faux stitching around the top edge to ground the image and some more in the corners to balance it out. I decided this card did need a sentiment and luckily this die-cut tucked in perfectly over their hats.

Copic markers:

red breast – R05, R27
brown feathers – E31, E55, E44, E57, glazed with W4
white feathers – W4, W2, W0
eyes – T2, T1, T0, 0
beak – T6, T8
feet – YR21, YR24, YR27, glazed with W4
hat – R35, R29, R89
hat trim – W4, E70, W00, C2 for shading
branch – E31, E35, E27
background – B000

Polychromos pencils:

red breast – 225 dark red, 223 deep red, 121 pale geranium lake
brown feathers – 179 bistre
white feathers, eyes – 232 cold grey 3

Supplies:

• digital stamps:
  Kajsan – julmotiv pippi pair
• dies:
  Tonic Studios – wave merry Christmas
• pens:
  Uni-ball Signo UM-153 white
• paper and card:
  Neenah solar white 216gsm
  Hunkydory beautifully bright paper pad
  Papermania glitter card
  Hunkydory Adorable Scorable cotton white