You Are My Little Bird

Some good friends of ours just adopted a beautiful baby girl. We are so excited for them!

I remember my friend saying a long time ago how much she like Elizabeth Mitchell's You Are My Little Bird CD, and how she would base her daughter's room decor on the album cover. So I decided to make it her "Welcome" gift. Here's how I did it, if you ever want to make something similar.

I gathered up some 5" by 7" frames and chose the scrapbook paper I was going to use.

I printed out a few copies of the images I would use, and traced them with tracing paper.

The image cuts off, so I hand drew the rest of the child.

I made sure I knew where I was placing my figures before I did anything permanent. 

I traced the 5" by 7" block for each figure to be sure they would fit.

 I made sure that I only traced large color blocks, to save myself trouble cutting out pieces later.

I picked which scrapbook pages I wanted for each color block and overlaid the correct traced image. I cut each individual piece out with an Exacto knife. That's important - don't try to do it with scissors or anything like that. I've found that only an Exacto blade can really get those details.

Here's a while figure cut out, so you can kind of see how the pieces fit. 

Next, I had to cut my matte board to fit the frame. I just traced the placeholder that came with the frame. I cut a piece of pretty scrapbook paper the same way, because I didn't want a plain white background. I used an Exacto knife again to make these deep cuts, since I didn't have a matte cutter.

Finally we get to gluing. You could use a simple glue stick, but I prefer this multi-purpose spray adhesive by 3M. It dries clear, and gives a good permanent hold when dry that I don't think glue sticks will do. Don't even try Elmer's glue unless you want your paper to wrinkle.


Step one: Set up a clean space outside. Put down newspaper or cardboard or some kind of protective barrier, because if the spray gets on anything it is a pain to de-stick it.

Step two: Lay out your first piece upside down. I did my background first, as you will want to if you choose to have one. If you don't have a background, then you can start with any piece.

Step three: Spray it lightly. It won't take much adhesive to make the paper sticky.

These are the legs to one of the little girl figures.

Step four: Pick up the paper with clean hands by the edges and place it on the matte board where you want it. You can probably move it once or twice if you do it right away. Press it down from the middle outward to avoid trapped bubbles.

Keep doing that until all your pieces are stuck down. Be careful about touching and overlapping pieces; you'll want to plan those ahead of time to avoid unsightly gaps between pieces. Wait for them to dry...

Now all you have to do is put them in the frames!

So cute! I hope she likes it!

*I don't in any way own rights to Elizabeth Mitchell's music, or album artwork. I'm not being paid to promote 3M and these are all my own opinions.