Beautiful Birds and a New Technique

Hello All,

Hope you are all doing well in this strange world we find ourselves in.  Today I am sharing two cards using the Beautiful Birds Stamp Set.  I decided to try an altered version of a technique I saw a couple of years ago, but it was done with flowers and Copic markers.
 

The general idea is to start your panel with watercolor paper and distress inks.  Some call this ink smooshing (Karen did a tutorial on this the other day) and some call it wrinkle free distress technique.  I smooshed some red and brown distress inks on to my craft mat and spritzed it.  I then placed my watercolor paper into the droplets.  This was then dried.  I repeated the steps multiple times to get the desired look.  I had in mind where I wanted my cardinal to go, so I tried to get my ink colors in appropriate areas. 
Once my paper was dry, I placed it in the MISTI and stamped the bird in red distress ink and the branch in brown distress ink (as best I could) right over the inked area.  I then painted the image with my Ken Oliver Colorbursts (which would be directly onto the distress inked areas).  I tried to keep the whole thing 'loose' but I found myself wanting to add in shading and detail.  When all was done, I stamped the feathers around the beak in black and then colored it in completely with a black Prismacolor pencil.  I added some details to to other areas as well with the Prismacolor pencil. 
Lastly, I spritzed some white acrylic paint on the image and also added 'snow' with a white gelly roll pen.  The sentiment is from the Christmas Wordfetti Set and is heat embossed in white. 
The bird was die cut out and framed with some die cut patterned paper.  The sentiment and a few sequins finish it off. 
The second card uses the Beautiful Birds Stamp Set as well.

The process was the same; ink smooshing in greens and blues.  Then the image was stamped in blue and green.  I cam back in with the watercolors to add additional color and details to the image.  I did overstamp the image with a dark ink to make the image crisper as things got a little muddied.  Details were added with Prismacolor pencils.  The sentiment is from the Precious Poppies Stamp Set.
The panel was die cut and adhered to the card base.  The sentiment is popped up on dimensional tape and sequins were added. 
This was a fun experiment and I am pretty happy with the results.  Here's to hoping you have time to play this week!  
There is still time to grab the new release bundle and get a 10% savings!  And to sweeten the deal, shipping is free when you spend $75 or more!  Wait, a little sweeter still- get the Stamp of the Month, Friendship is a Blessing, with a purchase of $75 or more through the month of April. 

Thanks for stopping by,

Lee Ann