Birds of a Feather

A few of my friends recently got into papercraft and they've inspired me to give it a go myself. My printer is out of color ink at the moment so I needed a pattern that could be adapted onto scrapbook paper and when I came across NaniBirds I knew I'd found just what I was looking for, how perfect that birds are also one of my favorite motifs.

My first step was to print one of the patterns in b&w to get a handle of the process. I made a few mistakes, most notably cutting the area above the beak, but I liked the look of the end result (see the gray one in the above photo). I was feeling reasonably confident so I traced the b&w pattern onto some colorful scrapbook paper (I thought the spring imagery and text was a perfect match) using a folder to crease the lines since the paper is thicker than printer paper. Once everything was in place I wanted to add some extra details so I used a coordinating paper for the beak and feet and drew on a little eye. I had so much fun with these that I can't wait to try some new designs (and perhaps make a few more birds too).