Some Peeps and Some Mulberry Paper

Last night I made this card with one of my new stamps from my last shopping extravaganza at Angela's and some Basic Grey papers:

When I first saw this stamp (Hampton Arts) I immediately thought "paper piecing". What a great way to use up pretty scraps! I was also reminded how Lydia over at UnderstandBlue often stamps on old book pages. Me, I cannot bring myself to deface a book, no matter how old or useless to me, even if it is free. I just cannot do it. But this stamp - THIS STAMP - was perfect. It came with its own word background! Naturally, it needed to come home with me.

Then today, two of my Tweeple mentioned they had never played with Mulberry paper (also known as handmade paper), so I am sending them some to get it OUT of here, and along the way, the Mulberry paper morphed into another version of this card.

So tonight, I thought I'd give you a quick step-by step of how I made this card, and I'll rip up some Mulberry paper along the way. Let's begin!

First I stamped the image in black on a piece of white card stock, and cut it out with a square Nestie. I also stamped the image onto a piece of Basic Grey paper from the June Bug 6x6 pad. Why this paper, you may innocently ask? Because ... all together now ... it was out.

Here we have the two stamped images ... on white and on the BG paper.

I cut out each bird's body and stuck it onto the other stamped image. Mmmmm ... pretty!

Then I layered the white on some BG yellow from the same pack, then stuck that to a piece of blue Mulberry paper. I left a large border around the square ... you'll see why in a sec.

I have a small bowl of water, and I dipped my finger in, then ran it along the top of the Mulberry paper to wet it. As my finger dried, I just dipped it again and kept going until I'd wet it to just beyond the stamped piece.

I continued wetting the other three sides until I had a square drawn with water all around the stamped piece.

Then I started to tear. I actually used two hands to do this - one on each side of the wet line, to have really good control of the tearing process. It is really tough to take a pic without growing that third arm, so I am holding the initial tear with one hand here, but I wanted to show you how I started the tearing process.

Note: Tear wide at first. It is easier to remove excess paper than it is to put it back if you tear off too much. :-)

Using two hands and gently tearing all the way around, I removed the square from the larger piece of Mulberry paper.

I went back and fine-tuned my tearing until I got it where I wanted it. If the piece dries out, just touch a bit more water to the spot and you'll be fine. Yes, it looks rough. Rustic. Uneven. It is SUPPOSED to look like that. Perfect in my crooked world.

Here is the finished card with the Mulberry paper instead of the die-cut scalloped border I'd used originally. It gives the card a totally different look. The ONLY think I changed here is that blue layer.

Look closely and you can see the paper can curl a bit when it dries, which just adds a little bit more dimension and interest.

So that's it - my bird cards. One with a die-cut scalloped layer and one with a Mulberry paper layer.

I'm off to pack up the paper I am shipping out tomorrow (gotta add the cards to the packages!), then I think I'll actually head to bed on time this evening.

Thanks for stopping by!