DIY Watercolor Birds Pen Holder

Hi friends! I am back from an chilly, but lovely walk. I always enjoy breathing fresh air. During March, the Eileen Hull Inspiration Team is sharing projects spring projects. I made a pen holder, featuring birds.

As you might already know, I like to make my own storage containers, and I have quite a few of them on my desk. I have a pretty deep desk, so there is plenty of space. When I used Eileen's new Treasure Box and Stacking Drawer dies to make a Chest of Drawers last month, I thought they would also work great as a pen and tool holder, with three handy compartments. I used very few supplies to make this project, just the dies, mat board, Darkroom Door stamps and watercolor paint. Did you know that mat board is a great surface for watercolor? It holds up very well to the water and is similar to hot-press (smooth) watercolor paper. Just as with hot-press paper, the paint dries fast.

Die cut the pieces seen here, from white mat board: two side pieces and one base from the Treasure Box, and three dividers from the Stacking Drawer. You need the Extended Cutting Pads, since this is an XL die, but it fits perfectly through the ordinary Big Shot or Vagabond.

I used the wonderful Garden Birds Darkroom Door set, designed by Godelieve Tijskens. I love these birds. Stamp them with waterproof ink.

I used a bird book as reference, since I wanted to paint specific birds, but you can of course also paint your own fantasy birds. Mix watercolor paint before starting. Paint loosely, not worrying about perfection or fiddling around too much with the paint. The watercolor paint is vibrant on mat board.

I painted an European Robin, a Eurasian Blue Tit, and a Great Tit, repeating the first two in the smaller versions. These are all some of my favorite birds.

Add quick background colors with golden green and brown, adding a shadow under the birds.

I used the grass stamp from Darkroom Door's Nature Walk set, inked it with Peeled Paint, misted with water and stamped.

For a little more texture, I splattered some dark grey watercolor paint on the background, focusing especially on the ground.

Add sentiments from Nature Walk, and birds from African Trees. I also stamped the names of the birds with alphabet stamps.

Apply a strong adhesive along the flaps.

Adhere the sides together.

Adhere the base to the storage holder.

Assemble the three compartments.

Place them in the storage holder.

Fill with pens and tools. I just added random pens and tools from my desk, for the sake of the photo. I will organise it better later, and I always keep my pencils with the tip up. For some reason, I placed them the wrong way around here.

The Eurasian Blue Tit is one of my absolute favorite birds, and I see them often outside my window and on my walks. 

If you want to, you can paint branches for them to stand on, but for this project, I was happy with them standing on the ground, or it might even be a thick branch.

The European Robin is another bird I see frequently, and it has such a gorgeous color combination. I painted it very loosely, leaving some of the white of the mat board showing, for highlights.

The two little birds are cute too, and it looks like the Blue Tit has something to say to the Robin.

And finally, the Great Tit, which has similar, but also different shades of color compared with the Blue Tit. The shape of this bird stamp fit well with the Great Tit, which is another common bird around here.

And let's finish with a lovely sentiment stamp. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by here today! I hope you will try to use watercolors on mat board, since it is a lot of fun.

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

* Please note: the links are affiliate links, for which I receive a small percentage of sales generated by the link, at no extra cost to you.

Additional supplies:

Daler and Rowney watercolor paint
Darkroom Door African Trees Set
Hero Arts Printer's Lowercase alphabet stamps