Birdhouse Birthday Card

(Click on any photo to view a larger image.)

Birdhouse Birthday card front

The summer is my busiest time of year with birthdays, anniversaries, graduations and the occasional birth. My sister-in -law celebrated her 60th birthday last weekend so I created this card featuring my current fascination with birdhouses and my ever popular butterflies. I created the house file in a drawing progam and cut it with my KNK Zing Air electronic cutter. The grass border was a little piece left over from a previous project. The verse in the center of the birdhouse, a free cutting file I downloaded, appropriately enough, from birdscards.com, as well as the inside verse and image, were drawn with the Zing Air.


Drawn, you say? On a cutting machine? Yes! The Zing Air has an optional pen accessory tool that allows you to insert pens or slim markers in place of the cutting blade. This allows you to draw an image instead of cutting it. (
(I have also used a glue pen in the past and added glitter afterwards...great effect.) Because the Zing Air does not have a fill function, it only draws contours and lines, leaving the centers blank. With the verse on the front of the card, I had to manually fill in the letters with a fine tip marker. The inner verse was done using a hairline font, meaning that the contours of the font are very, very slim so the letters appear to be comprised of simple strokes. After trying out several different hairline fonts that I downloaded free from 1001Fonts.com, I chose the one  you see here. The image is one I composed using graphic files I have had on discs for years. I tweaked the elements a bit until I got something I liked and sent it to cut...err... I mean draw. I used a dark grey gel pen for drawing the poppy and hummingbird and a black one for the verse. I wanted a subtle difference between those two elements so they wouldn't visually compete with one another. My sister-in-law loved her card and showed it off to all her friends at her party.

I definitely see more birdhouses in my future.

Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva