The Things I Did With My Tim Holtz Caged Bird Die

I've always craved to have the Tim Holtz Caged Bird Sizzix die.  Seeing those projects and layouts using the shape left me totally awed and I can't wait to try them out myself!

When I finally got one last year, using it to make embellishments for a scrapbook page is far from my mind.  I was all into this altered art, my creative juices was going into 3D mode until last July 2012 when I started making scrapbook layouts again :D 

These are my first projects (jennings644-inspired projects again :D)

I used plain chipboards, painted them with ordinary house acrylic paint then dabbed with Rub & Buff or Folk Art Metallic Acrylic paints.  Glued the cages together, put some chain thingamajig to hang the bird inside the cage as well as serve as hanging chain.  I haven't embellish them before I gave them to crafting friends so hopefully they get to embellish the cages themselves.

When I ran out of space to hang all of them, it was time to shift to other projects.   

But first I attempted to create a base to hang the candle holders and I came up with this crescent shape thingy made from layers of chipboards held together as I don't have anything sturdier like wood.  I did the foiling technique then I took one of the unused lids for my oval boxes and put some tile/wall putty on it to hold the crescent.  So I made myself a free-standing crescent moon to hang my candle holder. 

When it was finished, I realized this reminded me so much of that Dreamworks image with that kid with a fishing pole sitting on a crescent moon!

I gave that one as a present.  Still haven't gotten around to doing another, but I mean to as I still have quite a few of those candle holders.

I also did 4-sided bird cages which I used as pen-holders.  

My son requested a container of sorts for candies when he saw some of my creations but he specified something bigger and with cover so I made him this: 

I was browsing altered art project images and came across this fairy house thing that really, really looks amazing! I wanted to make one but I don't have the materials.  Then my altered art persona thought it looks like a gazebo, so hey, maybe I could make a gazebo using the cages!  It has been months since I made this one and it's still bare:

It's not something I would do again in the near future.  But I'm not abandoning it, I'm simply storing it away and when I get those teeny flowers and vines I would embellish my gazebo.  But for now, she may have to gather some dust while I get into something new.

{ Fast forward to one year after I made this draft:  I finally got around to embellishing my gazebo as a token of gratitude to a crafting friend in Miami (Qoolayful Invites) for choosing my daughter's doodle artwork as the grand prize winner for her Fan Sign contest (she won a cricut mini yay!)

I also made these caged bird hooks where I hang my cellphone chargers & flash disks.  I pinned them to the side of my stash cabinet right beside my worktable.

I remember I made bag tags of sort to some of my daughter's friends last March.  I glued two cages together to make it thicker & sturdier.  Apologies as I can't find any existing photos.

I'm still thinking of other ways of making use of my cutting dies other than as mere scrapbook layout embellishments.  Hopefully I could make more.

Thanks for dropping by!