Scrapstuffz"Inspired by" Guest Designer~I know why the caged bird sings...

I am so excited today to be a guest designer at Scrapstuffz Inspired by challenges.  Here is this month's image:

When I got the assignment Maya Angelou had just passed and all I could think about was her story.  I usually only scrap pictures but this sentiment could not be expressed in the size of a card. 

I loved how the cobalt blue was so striking against the natural wooded background.  So I started with that and found some really old Creative Memories paper that I embossed with a new 12" embossing folder of trees.  I heavily chalked the paper with Quick Quotes Mocha Moma to bring out the embossing.   I also used some of the matching stickers adhered to white card stock and popped up with dimensionals. 

For the bird and the cage I wanted to use my Tim Holtz Sizzix die.  I experimented with many papers and settled on the copper glitter paper for a sort of "gilded" cage.  I then cut the bird three times.  The first is a brown printed paper for the branch, second is a cobalt tissue paper, third is the wing in blue glitter paper.  I put a brown pearl for the eye.

I had all these cobalt and copper beads in the jewelry half of my studio.  I popped the cage up so the beads would "dangle" appropriately. 

I liked how the bird feeder "dangled" in the image and thought mine should, too.  I used some copper ball chain on a 7 Gypsies brass hook.  I made one "panel" of my page woodgrain. I felt the cage popped more hanging on the solid slice of paper.  I also cut various music notes with my Sizzix.

I picked out a fitting quote from the novel, wrote it on craft card stock...

and used Creative Memories Sophisticate brown letters for the memorial.

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  I hope you enjoyed my guest designer post as much as I enjoyed doing it!

I would like to enter this in the following challenges:

http://paper-wings-productions.blogspot.com/2014/07/july-challenge-with-creative.html until July 31

http://artisticinspirationschallenges.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/challenge-100.html until July 19

http://sparklingblackrose-craftmylife.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/all-crafts-challenge-junejuly_2.html?showComment=1404157403362 until July 31

http://fattastictuesday.blogspot.com/2014/07/fan-tastic-tuesday-challenge-44.html until July 20

http://greatimpressionsstamps.blogspot.com/2014/07/july-challenge-animal-friends.html until July 31