Pets - the April Twofer Challenge

One of my Mum's favourite pets was her budgerigar, Ringo.  Now you have to understand that Ringo was her favourite Beatle and she felt the bird's beak was on a par with Ringo's rather well-formed nose.  Mum had taught her Ringo a number of words and phrases, one of which was "hurry up".  Apparently my sister and I were told that so many times in the morning, getting ready for school, that the bird began  nagging us as well.

Imagine my delight when Stampin' Up! came out with the Bird Banter stamp set.  It included a pair of budgerigar stamps which I knew would be perfect for my cards.  I was over the moon with delight when I discovered that the Twofer Challenge decided on the theme "Pets" this month.  What a great reason to ink up this adorable bird!

I made two cards, of course.  The first could be used for friendship or a bit of "mush" for your sweetie.  I used only the images from the Bird Banter for this card and then coloured them using my Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol.

The second card is for someone who is under the weather with illness or is just having a rough time.  For this card I combined the images from Bird Banter and from the Weather Together bundle.  I cut the umbrella from a piece of scrap retired Designer Paper and propped  it up on Dimensionals.  The handle is cut from a scrap of dark brown cardstock and that centre rod is cut from silver foil.  I fussy cut the budgerigar (the feet almost killed me) and placed him on the rod, looking out at the weather.  I used my Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol to colour the bird but the wet ground is actually my Stampin' Blends with the drip swirls hand drawn using my white marker.

And here are the two together.

I hope you'll check out the awesome samples and entries at the Twofer Card Challenge Blog.  #twofercardchallenge

I'm also entering the second card in the Inkspirational Challenge #158 - Rain Photo