As you can see from the above picture I have created not one but three cards, which all feature the Cog Frame die, alongside the Deer Head die.  I will be sharing how I created the Happy Birthday card for this blog post.

If you're interested in the other two I would be happy to write and share them with you as well. 

I started out just playing around with nothing really in mind.  I pulled out some of my recent purchases of distress oxide sprays and Dylusion sprays and just went to town spraying and mix them in with my Ken Oliver colour bursts.  I pulled out Canson watercolor paper as well as some Strathmore to see if I would get a different result on each.  

Here in the above, I started off using some squeezed lemonade distress spray as well as mowed lawn.  I added cut grass Dylusions ink as well as pthalo green and lemon yellow colour bursts.  In between I would spray with some water to get the colours to blend and move around, this also helped to oxidize those lovely distress oxide sprays.  I did end up adding a mermaid lagoon and peacock feather to the mix.  Once it was dry I decided to take out my brass mica spray from Tim Holtz and sprayed it all over the panel. 

While I had the mica spray out I added the same brass colour to some clean watercolor paper and set it to dry.  

While everything else was drying I went and did all my die cutting.  I ran the Deer Head die through my Gemini Jr several times as I wanted to create dimension without using too much foam tape.  I also die cut the Cog Frame several times using silver mirror cardstock and then again out of the card stock I had sprayed with the brass distress ink.  Once I was finished die cutting I sprayed the deer heads with the same ink and then, once dry, went back in with the Life-Changing blending brushes and  ground expresso distress oxide ink. 

I rummaged through my stash to find some pattern paper I thought would look good with the colour combination of this card. This card is not my typical A2.

I cut down the panel to 5 3/8 x 4 3/8 roughly.  I then put it into my Misti to stamp the Happy Birthday sentiment.  I stamped the sentiment using cosmic shimmer as I didn't want to heat emboss and thought this would be a cool look.  I liked it, however it didn't stamp so clearly, so I decided to go back in with ground espresso.  I really like the way it turned out, as the brown oxide ink picked the gold and just added so much interest. 

Now it was time to put it all together.  I cut down a card base to measure 6½ x 5. I then trimmed down the pattern paper.  The first panel was the woodgrain paper which measures 6¼ x 4 7/8.  The second was the orange paper which meassures 5½ x 4½.  Finally the main panel which is just slightly smaller than the orange.

 I adhered the first panel flat to the card base but soon realized that the paper I was using was very thin, so for the orange layer I decided to take some thick cardstock from my stash, glued them together and trimmed them down to size.  Then I was able to put it on to the card.  I am glad I did this as it gave the card a little more stability.

I popped up the main panel with some foam tape, doing the same with the deer head and some of the cogs I had previously die cut.  I finished them off with some black flat enamel dots.

Now we come to where I made a little booboo.  I decided last minute that, oh hey I need to add some more black to help it all work together.  So what do I do, I add splatter to the card.  I used some packaging to cover up some of the images but that didn't protect the white card base.  I ended up getting black all over it.  In an effort to salvage all my hard work, I took a sponge and some of that same black paint and distressed the edges of the card base.  

Thank you for taking the time to check out my little blog. I hope you found some inspiration and share your creations with Paper Rose Studio. 

Have a wonderful week ahead. 

Nancy