Hoot!

I love owls. I have owl mittens for winter that I got for Christmas. I was talking about it with my mom last night and was reminded that I come by it honestly as my grandmother also loves owls and had various pictures and crafts up at her house as well as having some homemade puzzles for me with owl pictures. Not to mention Owl (Wol) from Winnie the Pooh and Wise Old Owl from Mr. Dressup.

When I kept seeing owl stamps out this year I got excited. I tried to figure out how I could justify buying some, but unfortunately most of the suppliers were American and not ones with friendly Canadian shipping. Then I went to my LSS finally and discovered they actually HAD the owl stamps from Sassafras Lass. I had to get them. The set is Oliver & Friends. You get 5 different owls, an adorable tree branch, and a cute little cloud. And they are clear so I can see exactly where I am putting my stamp. Yay! Sadly they did not have the matching paper, but maybe I will have to look again.

I wanted to make a thank you card for my boss, the prof I have been working for all semester as his Teaching Assistant. It has been a great experience and I just really wanted to thank him for that. An owl card seemed perfect since I had no particular Confucian ideas. I was inspired by Jen's SFYTT. Didn't quite get it done over the weekend or anything, but I had a blast anyway.

I started with the idea of having the three stripes being trees and my little owl. The owl was stamped on cardstock that actually looks like cheap cardboard with all the little flecks. I used a dark brown ink but eventually discovered I would have to outline him because the ink just wasn't quite dark enough. I coloured in his beak with an orange pencil crayon. I think punched him out with my circle punch. The white matting was a later addition, but helps him stand out more.

I grabbed a great piece of fibered paper in dark green and made my card base from it. The fibers give it a nice feel of nature. The "trees" were purposely placed slightly crooked as trees do not always grow straight. I think pulled out the branch stamp from my set and inked it up with light brown to stamp on the trees. Most of the time it did not reach the background, but I was ok with that. It was intended to be somewhat subtle, just add pattern. I put the little owl on a good gap on a branch. I used the same paper as for the owl for the sentiment. I free handed it with my black Sakura Glaze pen. Some orange ribbon and a bronze brad finished that off.

Recipe:

Stamps: owl from "Oliver & Friends" by sassafras lass, branch from the same set

Ink: light brown and chocolate by ColorBox

Paper: dark brown cardstock by Bazzil, dark green fiber paper by The Paper Company, brown cardstock

Other: sakura glaze pen, orange ribbon by offray and someone else, bronze brad, brown fineliner, orange pencil crayon

Loving the spring weather, even if it does mean snow mould! I think a walk will be in order this afternoon!