Ballarat Stamping Day
Last Days to Sale-a-Brate

A Little Arty Bird

And now for something a little arty . . . 

Over the weekend I decided to run an (impromptu) "Virtual Party" for my team on our Secret Facebook Group. It was my birthday on Friday and my hubby had to go away for the weekend, so what better thing to do in the evening than spend a couple of hours (okay, okay, about 8 hours) in my stamping room with my team chatting online, and whipping up some creativity!

I posted an inspiration photo and a Crafty Bingo board image on the group and invited them if they didn't have any projects already on the go, to use the suggestions on the Bingo Board and/or the cute image for their inspiration to make something. The image of a very cute cake with bird and bow, came from a Facebook post with no reference or link to who the original cake decorator was.

Bird Cake Pic

Now, I do love a cute bird, and I think the colours in this image so match the Stampin' Up! colours and some of our current stamps and Designer Series Paper patterns.

I grabbed out a stack of supplies in these colours and patterns and whilst chatting to my team, asking them "Get to know you" type questions on the group and setting some challenges for them, I started thinking about how I could make an effective card with these products :

Stampin Up Collage Bird Card (1) (374x499)

As it happens, because I was very much multi-tasking, I decided to pop over to my Pinterest boards and have a look through the projects there. Did you know I even have a Bird Projects board on Pinterest for just such a moment?

 Martha Lever Bird in Watercolour Pin

I love this cute bird by Martha Lever, so rather than trying to find a Stampin' Up! tool that I could use to cut out a bird, I decided to draw one by hand similar to this one. I love the sketchy black outline and the collage of images in different layers.

I pulled out several stamp sets including "By The Tide" for the seashell text stamp, "Tap Tap Tap" for the typewriter letters, "You are Remarkable" for the branches, "Butterfly Basics" for a bit of fernery. I also used sponge daubers, aqua wash pen, white gel pen, white embossing powder and Black Journalling pen.

Stampin Up Collage Bird Card (9) (499x499)

I drew the bird onto the Blushing Bride floral print paper from the Subtles Paper Stack, hand cut it, then sponged it with Daffodil Delight, Pumpkin Pie, Melon Mambo and Cherry Cobbler Inks.

I collage stamped the background images all over the 8" x 6" piece of Soft Sky floral print paper.

Stampin Up Collage Bird Card (7) (484x499)

I watercoloured the leaves using Old Olive ink and the Aqua-wash pen, and sponged Lost Lagoon, Old Olive and Not Quite Navy over all of the images, leaving some lighter areas.

Stampin Up Collage Bird Card (4) (420x499)

I stamped and heat embossed with white embossing powder, the sea shell text stamp from "By The Tide" onto the birds body twice. Love that effect!!

Then handwrote with black journalling pen the words around the edge from Victor Hugo :

"Be like the bird,

that pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight,

feels them give way beneath her, and sings . . .

knowing she hath wings."

Stampin Up Collage Bird Card (2) (417x560)

My last step was to add a tiny touch of white gel pen to some of the leaves and the birds tail to bring back a little more light into the overall image, then looked around my room and by some sort of miracle saw this A4 document frame sitting on a shelf. Perfect!

I am so excited to have a new piece of art for the walls of my room. Funnily enough I have been carrying it from room to room throughout my house since Saturday night, so I can keep pausing and admiring it!

Do you ever do any collage stamping? I would love to hear from you so please leave a comment below if you'd like to know more about the techniques used or perhaps attend a class on sponging and collage stamping.

See you soon with Ink on your Fingers (and there's plenty of that with sponging!).

Kathryn

 

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Comments

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Mary Kelly

It looks lovely Kathryn, and it sounds like you had fun doing it too.

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