Birds and the Trees

March 02, 2016

Birds and the Trees

While looking at blogs, I came across Sunny Day Crafting's (link at bottom of page) challenge page. I saw the birds as the last challenge picture and I just knew I needed to make something.

One of my favorite trees in the yard is starting to get little buds on it! Since the cherry blossom tree only blooms for a brief period, I decided to make a model of it!

To start with, I used the 3D Bare-Branched Tree.

I wanted the tree to have wood grain on it. I printed a wood grain pattern front and back on brown paper before I cut out each shape. Then I cut out flowers and leaves on white cardstock. Each flower and leaf is painted with color from my eBrush.

Each flower/leaf was then hand curled and a pearl attached to the center. To curl the flower petals and speed up the time, I simply put them in the tip of an eBrush adapter and pushed it through with the bottom of a quilling tool.

The only downside to doing it this way was the more the glue dried on the pearls, many of them popped off so I had to reattach them again!

After all the flowers were complete it was time to add the leaves. I decided to do the leaves now so I wouldn't have to try and attach them to a 3D surface!

Next I made a birdhouse (not pictured yet) from the Home Tweet Home set.

And what is a birdhouse without a bird to occupy it?! So I used the 3D Birdie Box from the same set (Home Tweet Home). However, because I was working with a tree, I wanted the house and the birds to be somewhat to scale.

Which means reducing the sizes of the files considerably! I started the bird's off by cutting them out of white cardstock. Then I was able to paint them the color of my choice with the eBrush.

Once assembled, it was no larger than the dime.

I then cut out the grass from SnapDragon Snippets 'Grass and Borders' file and their 'Flourished Flower' set.

Once I put it all together, I think it flowed nicely together to capture my favorite cherry blossom tree!