All Occasion cards featuring little fabric birds stitched to handmade paper and layered onto decorative paper

I needed a few cards for sending our thanks for our gifts and special times over the Christmas season so I thought a little bird would do well for welcoming in the New Year!!  I dug through my scraps and found a few that were big enough to trace the little bird I had on hand.  After tracing I added lines to the beak and positioned a dot for the eye.  Next, I trimmed little heart wings for each of them.  Then I coloured the beaks with watercolour to highlight them compared the their bodies.  I found several sheets of handmade paper which were neutral enough to create a contrasting background for them.  I embossed these with a variety of embossing folders.  I added paper piercing to several of them using my pattern tracing wheel.  Then I positioned the birds on the handmade paper and stitched around the bird then added the little heart wings.  Some of the wings are pointy and others are bluntly.  No how that happened - not a conscious choice but at some point I put them on differently.  I like both options!! I added their legs next.  I then chose backgrounds and cardstock that worked with each bird and ran lines of paper piercing on all four edges of the backgrounds.  After that I took the time to tuck all the threads to the back and added the little gold sequins to create the eyes and securing them with a french knot with black embroidery thread.  I did consciously choose to have some facing left and some right.  I did cut out a few birds with different fabrics and two of those ended up being Christmas cards and I used a green handmade paper on them which I embossed with a word embossing folder.  It was fun to rummage in my scraps and find some fun fabrics to make these cards.  A bit of down time while I was tucking in threads and adding the eyes and then assembling them all in one session.  I added gold embossed stamped greetings inside the Christmas one.  Two more to add to my stash of cards for next Christmas!!  Therese