As of late I am not a huge fan of off-the-page-projects. Don’t get me wrong I love making them - they have no rules and are uncomplicated to say the least. The problem I have is what to do with them afterwards – unless you have a specific place for them to permanently live or a shop to display them in to inspire others – then they just become dust collectors. So now I have the attitude that if I make something off-the-page I have to give it away to someone that will really appreciate it. And so came to be this little bird house. The base is something I have used before – a cardboard box that used to house Easter eggs – so very appropriate and fitting I think.

 I started by covering the base with the Home to Nest range of papers by DoCrafts. WOW! Does the Ultimate die-cut pack have loads of goodies in to use – and the designs are just so fresh and beautiful! I used Artist Gel Medium to adhere and cover the paper on the base so that it would be protected against dust and general wear and tear (touchy feely people). The roof is covered in a layer of real moss bought from an art store and then decorated with flowers from Prima and Petaloo. The blooms were picked for their beautiful shapes, designs and colours, and then I threw in the colour purple for that something a little different and interesting.

But what I loved most about making this project is that I got to work with the beautiful themed Celebr8 Chipboard elements. No matter what your theme or project you can find something that will work – and the bird themed chipboard worked so beautifully together with the Home to Nest paper range. I used a variety of chipboards and coloured them in different ways – I embossed some with ZING! Embossing powders, others were simple inked using Versafine ink pads and then for my all-time favourite, yes you guessed it – the layered chippies. For the word “faith” I used silver leafing on the bottom and inked the word on top and then added a layer of Anita’s 3D glaze.

gorgeous Celebr8 chipboard designs - to see how i customized some of the chipboards go to 

The Wholesalers blog for sxs instructions

matching blooms in purple, red, yellow...

 birdie stamps coloured with Artiste markers