Variations on a Feather!

Who doesn’t love a feather or two? Toss in a few Victorian-inspired bird cages and you’ve got a festival in the works. I’ve been playing around with the Brutus Monroe Premium Pigment Ink in Alabaster again. In this case, it seems to be a good match for the vintage birdcages and feathers included in the Brutus Monroe Angel Wings Stamp Set. I love the intricate detail in the cages and the feathers; and I am really happy with how the cages, stamped in Alabaster, look on the deep gray and a pink cardstock. So that is where I started this time around.

I ended up with two card and tag variations using the same components in different colorways. I pulled two prints from my planner sticker designs (yes, I sell planner stickers and printables in my Etsy shop…trlplansandprints). One design in a pink floral on dark gray and the complementing print that is pink floral on a light gray background. Before printing, I scaled the print down — 75% seems to be the sweet spot in my scale bakery! Using my Silhouette, I created a few tag size variations and cut them from both of the prints.

Back to the stamping, I love the sentiment that is included in the Angel Wings stamp set. With the Alabaster ink, I stamped away on the same gray that I used for the birdcages. I also threw in a few birds. I went a bit feather crazy at that point and used Brutus Monroe Premium Chalk Ink in Sage (dreamy), Sea (dreamier), Aubergine (dreamiest) and Rouge (equally as dreamy and not to be slighted) and stamped all the feathers in different inks on plain white cardstock. Then I went to fussy cutting heaven. While there is a free digital cut download for this set of stamps, I’m the oddball who actually likes to fussy cut tiny things so I did not use the dig cuts; but I do have them waiting in the wings should I need them in the future.

For the cards, I used thin foam tape to attach the birdcages to the tag backgrounds and placed the feathers floating along side the birdcages. I did use foam tape on a few feathers in each design to give a bit of depth. I taped the decorated tags to a card back that started life as plain old white cardstock but sparked to life with a spritz of Brutus Monroe Liquid Elements in Sterling. One card was finished with a tiny black and white polka dot ribbon just to tie it all together. Little birds were added with foam tape. Decorating done…the card backs were taped to the fronts of 4.25” x 5.5” cards. And, poof -- cards!

The two tags were made using the same materials — just no card back or card. My first thought was to use these as bookmark type cards in either my Erin Condren Planner or my Happy Planner. The birdcages and feathers were all attached with flat double sided tape just in case I decide to laminate the tags. I think they look cute just as happy little accessories in the pages that are decorated with the planner stickers that match the prints (ECV-0125 are still available in my Etsy Shop). While too big for planner clips for the top of my planner, they would look cute tucked into the inner pockets of a Kikki K, Kate Spade, Filofax, Marion Smith or any other ring binder planner you might have.

The detail in these stamps makes it so easy to not have to fiddle with coloring or watercoloring in some fashion. I just let the detail on the stamps and the inks be the stars. I was surprised that I could get great impressions with the Alabaster ink on the darker papers — not an easy task; but these inks and stamps are up for the challenge. You may have seen an earlier post of mine using this same stamp set — those designs were much “darker” in nature…fun still…but a bit different in their overall vibe. The charm of the Victorian birdcages, feathers and the sentiment is timeless so I am sure variations of these will be in my repertoire for many years to come.