Oh my, a month-long stamping party! Yes, please! The fabulous online retailer, Simon Says Stamp, created this celebration wonderful event that features special products, inspiration, and collaborations all month long. STAMPtember started early this year, when they made a call out on social media, looking for people to help promote their event. They gave out a super secret previously unreleased stamp set for free to the first 100 people to respond. Talk about generous! I was lucky enough to see the offer and get in on it. I received my stamp set a couple days ago, and have been playing with it every since. We promised to not put our projects out until the release at 12:01am ET September 1st. There will be special events all month long, so you want to be sure to follow their blog at www.simonsaysstampblog.com. Most of the special collaboration products get posted on this site at midnight, and in the past some have sold out before most of us are awake in the morning! So if you see something you like, don’t hesitate to purchase it. When it’s gone, it’s gone! Remember, there’s no crying in cardmaking!
So, without any further ado, here it is!
This set is so cute! It’s a group of 8 little birds. There’s an outline stamp that stamps the set of birds. There are 3 layering stamps which add the body, the wings, and the belly, all in one shot for all of the birds. It comes with a few sentiments, including birthday, miss you, and encouragement verses. I especially love “hope is the thing with feathers…”, as I love that lyric by Emily Dickinson. I immediately thought of bluebirds (of happiness) and feathers of course.
I used Tim Holtz kraft cardstock, for kind of a “folk art” look. I played around with some blue oxide inks, and decided on Salvaged Patina for the body of the bird. I tried Uncharted Mariner for the wings, as well as a few browns, and didn’t love any of them. I don’t have Peacock Feathers in the Oxide formula, but I thought that would look the best. I just didn’t like the way the Distress Ink looked on the kraft stock. I thought “use what you have”, and I know that the oxides have white pigment in them, which my Distress Ink pad was missing. What I did was to understamp white Picket Fence Ink, and then stamp the Peacock Feathers on top of it. That gave me the look I wanted. I tried a few colors for the belly, and settled on Wild Honey.
It would have been much more difficult to do this without my stamping platform. I planned to stamp the outline so I could see where the fill in stamps go, and then stamp the outline again at the end to get a crisp outline. To do that with my stamping platform (regulation size), I was able the use half of the platform with the outline, and leave it there in the same position on the cover, and then use the other half of my platform to add the other layers.
I added a sentiment on vellum, and added a strip of cardstock to match to fill out the rest of the cardfront. I really wanted to add a feather, and I had just gotten the fabulous die set from Gina K Designs, Fancy Feathers. It still looked like it needed something, so I added a few black sequins.
I really liked the colors that I used for the birds, and wanted to make a similar card on white cardstock. For the second card, I used a stencil by Picket Fence called Mermaid Scales, SC-171. I purposefully blended Salvaged Patina Distress Oxide with a blending brush to be inconsistent, with some darker areas and some lighter. I thought it would add the appearance of texture. I stamped the sentiment in Versafine black ink, and embossed it with detail clear embossing powder.
Which one is your favorite? I hope you got some ideas for your own projects with this fun set. And guess what? There are coordinating dies available!! How cute will it be to sprinkle these cute little birds all over the place! Thanks for looking. Be sure to check out all the fabulous fun Simon Says Stamp has in store for us this STAMPtember!
Products featured:
Simon Says Stamp Printmaking Birds
Vicki Fedor 