Sunday Surprise with Heather S!

Hello everyone!  I am very excited to be back in the blogging world after about a year long hiatus.  A huge thank you to Kricut for pulling me out of my hidey hole.  :)   So... About me.  My name is also Heather - maybe I'll need a special alter ego like our friend Kricut.  I am the proud momma of two, a 4 year old and an about-to-be 14 year old.  I am married to my very best friend, Dennis.  I've been crafting since I was a child and scrapping for about 15 years.  I've really gotten into vinyl crafting and venturing outside of the scrappy world with my crafting over the last 5 years.  I'm guessing this is the reason why Kricut has assigned me with the Sunday Surprise segment!  (Yeah, no pressure.)   What I'll aim to do with this segment is try to show you  some of the cool non-paper crafts you can use your Cricut (or Silhouette, or Pazzles, etc)  to make.

On with today's project.  I CANNOT take credit for the idea.  You know ModPodge?  Well there is this AWESOME blog that is dedicated to all things ModPodge.  You can get to it by clicking here.  I follow her and there is always something cool being made there.  Anyway - years ago she featured an artist who made this:

I fell in LOVE and decided that it needed to be recreated in my guest room.  Here is my take on the project using leaves from Mother's Day Bouquet (though other substitutes could easily be used).  The birds were traced from a template because I really liked the shape, but since I've made it my options for birds have significantly increased with my cartridge selection : )    You can easily use any bird shape for this project.

I made it using some cute papers I had on hand from DCWV and a pair of canvases I got on sale at Michaels for a total of $4.50!!!  Such a deal!  The leaves are cut at 1.5 and 2 inches using the Mother's Day Bouquet cart (one of my favs) and I used the flip function on my Expression for half of them.  Once cut, I used Mod Podge to seal the paper to the canvas.  (****BEGINNERS TIP****  I wasn't sure if I should use Mod Podge over the whole canvas after....I'm a newbie to it and didn't know how it would dry.  I didn't and should have!)  The branches were drawn freehand with pencil, then painted over with dark brown acrylic paint.  I LOVE how these turned out - and it became the first of many Cricut + Canvas projects!  Very fun and very easy!

I hope you have enjoyed my post today!  Please check out my Facebook Page at H. Sipes Studios : )  Hope to see you there!  - Heather S  <3


Hugs and Chirps!