Three Happy Birds

Happy Monday and a fabulous new Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge. The theme for this week is 'Fly', which is such a super fun theme to me. I love everything with birds, wings, butterflies, and flying. I am looking forward to seeing everyone's interpretations of this theme, and don't miss the gorgeous projects by my design team mates.

I really love birds and am always on the lookout for birds and trying to catch them on photos. I decided to make three happy little birds that will fly around in my study.

 

To make these, I used the fabulous Sizzix Bird die by Eileen Hull. I did a tutorial with this die some time ago, making three different birds, you can find it here. One bird is steampunky, one is a text bird with pretty blue wings and the third one is a funky Dylusions bird.

The bird and the wings were die cut from mat board (chipboard or grungeboard would work great to) and foil tape. The die both cuts and scores the mat board, making assembly easy. I also cut a pair of wings from metallic mesh. The foil was embossed with the Diamond Plate folder and then adhered to the mat board. Don't place it on the wings where they will be attached to the body, since that will make it harder to attach them.

 

The bird was coloured with alcohol inks, also using some Snow Cap mixative, which makes the inks opaque. I wanted to create a patina look.

When dry, it was burnished with steel wool and then I rubbed some black paint here and there to distress it a bit more.

I stapled the wings to the bodies to make sure they were stuck and the two bird bodies were glued together. For a hanger, I simply used a Tim Holtz Hinge Clip and tied a piece of twine to it. It makes it very easy to get the right balance for the bird, since it is easy to move the clip around until the bird hangs the way you want it to.

 Since this is a steampunk bird, a mini gear with a screw brad was perfect for its eyes.

I used little strips of 7Gypsies tissue paper for some words on the wings.

 

A hole was made with a Crop-a-dile and a Tim Holtz Swivel Clasp is hanging from it. I embossed a Vintaj circle in the Steampunk Parts DecoEmboss folder and burnished it a bit. It was attached to the clasp with a jump ring together with a little key and another mini gear.

 

 Here's the other side of the Vintaj circle.

I coloured a piece of Tim Holtz kraft glassine paper with alcohol inks (Gold, Stream, Denim), letting it dry in between and adding more layers until I was happy with the result. The paper was crumpled up and inked a bit with Denim distress ink.

Three wings for each side were die cut from the kraft glassine. I covered a piece of mat board back and front with 7Gypsies Life Collage tissue paper, using multi-medium as my adhesive and die cut the body of the bird from that. The tail feathers were made by cutting quite a lot of layers of just the tail part of the bird. Since the tissue paper is thin, you can cut many at a time. 

The body of the bird was whitewashed with Distress Paint Picket Fence, wiping much off it off.

The tail feathers were misted lightly with water and scrunched up a bit. The feathers were stapled to the body.

A Word Stick hang from the bird.

The bird has pearl eyes. I love the words and quotes on this tissue paper and liked the 'life' on the head of the bird.

The wings have a really nice blue golden colour and were layered together and stapled to the body. ChitChat stickers were used on the wings.

To make the last bird, I first die cut two bodies and two wings from mat board. Molding paste was applied to them with a palette knife through two different stencils (Mini Cherry Blossoms for the bodies and Mini Cursive Alpha for the wings).

After the paste dried, I misted the pieces with Goosebumps spray to create more texture and let that dry. They were then misted with London Blue and Pure Sunshine Dylusions mist.

The wings were stapled to the bodies and the bodies were glued together.

 The hinge clip was painted with yellow Patina ink.

For the eyes, I used two Vintaj stars and embossed them with an 'a' and a 'k' (for my name). They were burnished and glued to the bird.

The wings were stamped underneath with an Artistic Outpost music stamp and I also used two pen nibs.

The finished bird, carrying a little bottle full of bird song.

The corked vial was filled with mica flakes. I glued the cord with Glossy Accents and screwed a screw eye into it. It is hanging on a jump ring together with a little key, and hangs from a mini paper clip. The word comes from the 7Gypsies tissue paper.

Join us this week and you could be the one to win a $50 gift voucher from our sponsor Simon Says Stamp. The winner of the gift voucher is drawn randomly every week.

Thank you for stopping by!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:
Dies: Sizzix: Bird Scoreboards Bigz
Embossing folder: Sizzix Diamond Plate & Riveted Metal; Sizzix Vintaj DecoEmboss: Lowercase Typewriter, Steampunk Parts
Stamps: Artistic Outpost Ephemera Backgrounds
Ink: Distress Ink Broken China
Patina ink: Ranger Vintaj Retro Highway
Alcohol ink: Adirondack: Sailboat Blue, Juniper, Denim, Stream, Pool, Gold, Snow Cap, Lettuce, Ginger
Mist: Dylusions London Blue, Pure Sunshine; Tsukineko Goosebumps spray
Paint: Distress Paint Picket Fence, Antique Linen; Adirondack Pitch Black
Surfaces: Tim Holtz Idea-ology Kraft Glassine; Sizzix Little Sizzles mat board 6x13; Ranger Metal Foil Sheets; 7Gypsies Life Collage Tissue; metallic mesh
Stencils: The Crafter's Workshop: Mini Cherry Blossoms, Mini Cursive Alpha
Embellishments: Tim Holtz Idea-ology: Corked Vials, ChitChat Stickers, Hinge Clips, Mini Gears, Mini Fasteners, Jump Rings, Word Sticks, Wire Pins, Swivel Clasps, Mini Paper Clips, Pen Nibs, Screw Eyes; Vintaj: Small Blank Circle, Tiny Artisan Stars; Stampendous Pearlized Mica Fragments; Hero Arts Black Metallic Deco