I received some happy news recently that warranted a card, so I just had to dig out (and assemble, wouldn't you know?!?) this fun stamp set, "Good Friend".

The 3 colors I chose were Summer Sun, Old Olive and the just-recently-retired Pacific Point (which was just too perfect, so I couldn't help myself, lol.)

The letters in "news" were die cut on the Big Shot (Naturally Serif die), and attached with a 2-way glue pen.  Had to work very, very carefully to get the spacing so it'd fit!

Now, if you check the images that come in this set, you'll see that I had to do a little "fussin'" with the "good friend" image.  At first I tried just inking up the word "good" with my marker.  But my marker is so juicy that it left areas of light and dark on the stamped image and I didn't care for that effect. So the next option was to mask it.

I began by covering the "…..friend" part of the image with a carefully-placed piece of transparent tape.  Then tapping very delicately, I inked up the stamp directly on the ink pad as usual.  But then here's the important part:  YA GOTTA REMOVE THE TAPE before stamping, lol!  (Does that sound like the voice of experience there?!?  Yes, it IS important to remove the tape or you get a great big smear instead of your carefully-planned custom image!)

Are you as charmed as I am with this darling birdie?  While he does fit on a card, just think how adorable he'd be on a scrapbook page or gift of some kind!  And he's got some companion birdies, too;"Cheep Talk" coordinates beautifully!  In fact, I used those images on the inside of this card.

Order up your own happy birdie sets here; just click and then select SHOP NOW.  For Good Friend, enter 113740 in the search box, and to find Cheep Talk (smaller coordinating images) it's 113204.