Flock Together

I am so excited to show you my second guest design spot for the Brutus Monroe team. I am using his new set called Paper Cranes.. For me paper cranes represent old world, dreams, wishes and unity. There is a story about paper cranes, if you make 1000 paper cranes your wish would come true.. People would make strings of 40 cranes with a total of 25 strings and give them as gifts, and after learning this I needed to incorporate a second stamp set from Brutus Monroe call Birds of a Feather. I thought the idea of giving the strung paper cranes as gifts to people was a sense of community and in this second stamp set there is a sentiment that says Birds of a Feather....Flock together I thought it was perfect to give to someone new at a job welcoming them to their new flock or community of friends or I am sure you can find other reasons to give this card.

The idea for the background of the card came from me playing with a new technique I thought would be fun to try which was water coloring with coffee. I enjoyed trying that technique but some people might not enjoy it so I looked into my Brutus Monroe supplies and pulled the brown and black Aqua Pigments and Aqua Pigment Paper. Honestly I like the way it turned out with the Aqua Pigments better than the coffee. I started with embossing my aqua pigment paper with my sentiment from the stamp set BIRDS OF A FEATHER with the Brutus Monroe Raven black embossing powder.

First I am dust it with an anti static bag.

I am cleaning off excess embossing powder.

Next I am applying heat to set the embossing powder.

Then moved on to taping down my paper onto a solid heat safe surface

I reuse my tape several times. I would rather spend money on stamps.

From there I just wet the paper and brushed on the brown Aqua Pigment dried it with my heat gun and repeated this adding a small amount of black to the brown and water when required to get the desired effect I wanted. I would dry in-between color applications and I would spray big water droplets on the layers dab with a cloth or paper towel and dry to set.

Spray or wet the surface of the paper

Starting with the brown aqua pigment do a wash with a little water add to it. This will lighten the color, allowing for better layers.

I like to heat set between the layers (I am impatient sometimes) In order to get the depth the different layers need to be dry first.

Here you can see I have add a second layer and dried it. Repeat until you have the look you desire.

Finally the reveal!

After I was happy with the way it looked I pulled out the strung paper crane stamp and my Misti stamping platform. I stamped this across the background right over the top of the sentiment. The sentiment is embossed so the ink can be wiped off, but because I used the Raven black ink it could not really be seen, so I wasn't worried about it.

I wanted more dimension so I decided to use a background I had practiced with and cut out the Cranes from it, then they were layered individually on the back with the raven card stock. Which really means I fussy cut the birds twice. LOL At this point popped the cut out birds up on black foam tape and attached each on the front of the card panel over some of the original stamping. I then glued it to black panel cut just 1/4 larger and mounted it to card base made from Not your MAMA's card stock

Inside the card I second generation stamped the strung birds in black and also stamped the words flock together.

Thank you for reading all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed it and learned something new.

Have an amazing day, where ever it brings you!

Heidi V