Owl Mandala

The last day of 2012...I am happy to see it go.  It was an intense year and I am personally ready for a new and better one!  In honor of the lessons I've learned and the wisdom I've gained...I made an owl card today.  I actually needed to make something really fast because my girls and I always watch the 10th Kingdom (it's an old HBO miniseries movie that is about 9 hours long) as we wait for the New Year to come in, upon which we celebrate with a glass of sparkling cider (this year's flavor will be Strawberry).

This stamp was my Christmas present from Kathy--my daughter loves owls so I am slowly building my stash of owls.  :)  I ended up stamping it twice and cutting out the owl part and placing it on top of the stamp. (Dragonslayerbuzz.com from Etsy).  Embossing this stamp made me learn something about Embossing powders.  It's hard to tell from the card, but I embossed the image using different embossing powders.  The pink is made with Adirondack and it is gorgeous--very sharp and clear and defined lines, similar to Ranger Fine Gold.  However, then I tried to stamp the green with Recollections.  AWFUL!  It was very thick, lost color and the lines blurred together.  The green on this card uses Stampendous.  It is better than the Recollections, but still not as clear and defined as the Adirondack.  This was an interesting experiment!

I ended up getting a bit whimsical, trying to use jewel-like tones, with the bottom of the card cut with a Stampin Up edger, to represent the owl scales.  The die cut encircling the owl is a Spellbinders.  It is gold paper...It's a bit difficult to see the sparkle but it is glittery paper.  Not sure how I like this card....am lacking a bit of creativity lately and I think I went overboard on color.  My daughter Julia (the owl lover) actually likes all the color.  LOL  Well tomorrow I will be back with a birthday card for a little boy and hopefully my mojo will be back for 2013.  I think I need to clean up my art space to get re-energized.   Enjoy the last few hours of 2012!  Margaret