SpringTime in Montana?

Even though it is to warm up quite a bit this weekend, it is a long time until we see signs of Spring, here in Montana.  Probably, not until the end of April will the grass start to be green and buds and blossoms appear on the trees.   Even flowers popping through the soil wait until the weather gets much warmer.  So it will be brown here for a while yet, even though the sun may shine brightly.

But I did make a couple of spring cards this week.

This first card is for the challenge on the Impression Obsession blog where you are to Think Spring.  I know this card doesn't have spring colours, but that is what it is like here in Montana. 

Lots of Impression Obsession dies used here  the cattails, the shore bird , the dragonflies and the shore grass.  
The background bushes were stamped with brown and then offset embossed with gold.  Also the tops of the bullrushes were embossed with gold too.  That is to represent the sun strengthening at this time of year.

This second card, I saw one similar to it on the internet and wanted to make one.  The embossing folder  is old, old, old.  One of he first ones I ever had and haven't used a lot.  The greenery was cut with a Memory box die.  The nest was cut on my Silhouette and the bird is a Quikcutz die.