Little bird told me

After a short break, I'm popping back into blogland to introduce the latest challenge over at the Alphabet challenge blog. For the letter B, we'd like to see birds on your creations - a wonderful theme for spring, when we get to hear more and more birds from early morning to nightfall. 

I've started working recently in an attempt to get myself back on track and back into life, but as I'm being overwhelmed on so many different levels with no possibility to pull the emergency break, I feel like I'm heading towards a major burnout. I try to keep the balance by resting as much as I can, but the energy put into work lacks elsewhere, making even the simplest daily activities impossible - I can't remember the last time I've done some proper grocery shopping, not to mention household chores, or anything productive for that matter. I find it both intriguing and terrifying to think that I have to meet with disaster in order to *maybe* find somebody to believe me when I say I'm completely exhausted, and that a job which leaves me bedbound for days isn't worth it. I would love to do some crafting to decompress, but it feels like I have neither the time nor the energy to do so.

With that in mind, I took a picture from an old calendar to create a simple bird-themed card. Those little featherballs on a fir branch are such a cute motif, and I decided to subtle frame them with a green piece of background paper. To keep the earthy, wooden atmosphere, I opted for a kraft card base. On that base, I placed a cardboard with more fir branches, which I bought in Pardubice years ago. To round up my creation, I added a couple of paper flowers, as well as some punched leafs in different shades of green. 

In the end, I wanted to add a sentiment, and I thought that a simple birthday greeting would suit the image, so I took a matching sentiment from my sticker stash. However, as I prepared a piece of white cardboard for the sticker, that strip of white seemed so out of place that I just couldn't glue it onto the card. I tried to place it in different corners to achieve an acceptable result, but to no avail. In the end it occured to me to try something different: if the white was so disturbing, how about skipping it altogether? I decided to place the birthday sticker directlyonto the card, and somehow, the only available space seemed to be the left upper corner of the bird image. And suddenly, everything fell into place: The sentiment feels like part of the scenery rather than some foreign body, and the particular placing makes it look like the birthday wishes come straight from the beaks of the birds. 

For a little real-life inspiration, a friendly little blue tit in park Tivoli. Feels like the memory of a past life.

challenges:

- 613 avenue create: ATG
- a place to start: ATG with optional twist "add flowers"

- classicdesignchallenge: ATG DT with optional twist "Happy birthday"

- crafty catz: ATG
- crafty gals corner: ATG

- creative inspirations: ATG with optional twist "spring"

- critter crazy: ATG animals

- do-all kreatives: ATG

- fabnfunky: add a sentiment

- kreativtanten: green

- lil patch of crafty friends: ATG handmade

- little red wagon: congrats

- make my monday: birds

- morgans artworld: ATG

- pennys papertake: ATG paper
- scrapping4fun: ATG

- wortartwednesday: ATG
- worldwide crafters and colorists challenge: ATG