Here we are in August and it's another new challenge over at A Vintage Journey and this month the lovely Anne has chosen 'Things with Wings' so what better than to take Tim's new bird die and use it to make Ken's birthday card. (He loved it by the way).
I die-cut the silhouette bird from a piece of distressed card left over from another project - you know the pieces that sit in a box because you don't want to throw anything away lol. Then grabbed all the brown distress inks plus antique linen and hickory smoke and went around it blending in the colours. I actually really liked him just like this.
BUT I wanted to make him just a little bit more realistic so I took out Tim's micro glaze which I'd not used before and rubbed a little over the whole bird, buffed it off with a dry towel. I wanted to add some 'painting' so I used all the colours gathered above and with a water brush begin painting with distress inks .....
..... but the surface is now water resistant so the inks gathered in little droplets - as I kept painting I could see definition appear as well as texture and in fact I think it is the perfect addition to give me some realism without overdoing it. Hey presto the garden bird was born.
For the background I cut a piece of card and applied some antique linen distress paint through Tim's doily stencil and made sure it was fully dried.
Next I blended scattered straw over and misted with water then heat dried.
The next step was to use the blossom stencil and randomly add some of the image using dried marigold.
Next I used another stencil and my own blended mister of evergreen bough and stormy sky re-inkers, misting through in the top half and turning the stencil over and laying the wet side on the lower half to transfer the ink and obtain the negative pattern.
I stencilled the word 'wonderful' using the Christmas stencil and used some other stencils to add more interest.....
...... blended barn door round the edges and tea dye over the whole background ....
.... and finished with walnut stain edges and some flicks of water to distress it.
I die-cut birthday in brown card using the celebrate thinlits ....
.... and added some mini branches.
I kept the embellishing very simple just some twine and a word charm smooshed over with alcohol inks.
Ken's birthday was last week, the day before we went up to London to meet with some of the lovely people attending the Wendy Vecchi workshop, we also had a gathering at home on the Friday night with family and friends.
I hope you will be able to come and join us at A Vintage Journey with a project this month and it's always well worth a visit for all the inspiration provided by my amazing teamies, they have so many ideas and ways to use the products and materials you probably already have on the shelves in your craft room.
Have a great August and I hope the sun is shining wherever you are.
Enjoy your creative endeavours.
hugs Brenda xxx
