Hello friends! It’s my birthday in a few days, and one of the things I’ve always loved about my birthday being in the spring, is this is also the time of year to see baby animals! A few years ago I was lucky enough to find a hummingbird nest in my yard in the absolute PERFECT spot for me to set up my camera and take photos and videos! I used a telephoto lens so I could stay far enough away to keep mama bird happy and not draw the attention of potential predators. It was amazing watch the tiny Tic Tac sized eggs hatch, and the tiny babies grow and eventually take their first flight! I figured a hummingbird card was the perfect way to celebrate my birthday! (baby hummingbird pic at the end!)
The new Floral Muse stamp and die set from LDRS Creative has a beautiful little hummingbird. The dies for this set are VERY close cut to the stamp line. While I love having less halo around the images, it does make it really hard to die cut as there is no room for error in aligning the die, and you can’t even see the beak to make sure you have that centered. Luckily there is an easy solution using either the MISTI or the MISTI Lite!
Die cut first, stamp second. I die cut my hummingbird from watercolor paper, then kept the paper I die cut it from. I added a little washi tape behind the the hummingbird shaped hole, and this creates an alignment guide. I taped my guide down to my Platform and used the Power Mag to secure the MISTI Lite (this same process works great in the MISTI too).
You can easily align the stamp in the hole of your guide; just make sure you check all your edges! Having it on the Platform makes it easy to bring the platform up to eye level to see where the stamp is sitting in the hole. When you are happy with the position, pick the stamp up with the MISTI Lite.
Now you can place your die cut “blank” into the hole and stamp. Perfect! If you have cut a bunch of blanks ahead of time, this is a really easy way to get them all stamped quickly. Simply lift the stamped die out of the hole and pop in the next blank!
My photo shows the hummingbird stamped in a dark gray ink so you can see the lines, but for my project, I stamped my bird using Inkon3 Fadeout ink, nice and light, I then used a variety of watercolors to paint it. Hummingbirds come in all sorts of beautiful array of colors, so pick your favorites and have fun!
Picking out a couple of the colors from my hummingbird, I create a soft watercolor background, focusing the color in the bottom left and fading to white on the top right. I also added in splatters… because they are fun!
Using Spellbinders Copperplate Happy Birthday press plate, I foiled my sentiment- I love the elegance the foil adds! I also added in some sparkly gold splatters after foiling.
I glued my watercolor panel down to an A2 card base, used a black pen to doodle a border, and glued on my little hummingbird. Simple yet effective!
For a little something extra, I added a bit of sparkle to the head and tips of the wings using a shimmer paint. I find that small hints of sparkle are often more effective than covering the whole thing in sparkle.
And, as a little treat, here is mama feeding her babies in the nest that was in my yard a few years ago… There were 2 babies in the nest (even though you can only see on popping it’s head up here). Hummingbirds are INCREDIBLE!
Happy painting!
My Sweet Petunia Products:
Other:
Paper- Arches Coldpress Watercolor paper
Stamp: LDRS Creative Floral Muse
Die: LDRS Creative Floral Muse
Ink: Inkon3 Fadeout
Press Plate: Spellbinders Copperplate Happy Birthday
Foil: Spellbinders Champagne
Color: various watercolors
I have tried this method and while it greatly improved my stamp positioning, it still wasn't quite centered. So this is my method. I put the stamp in my Misti and then stamp it on the grid or plain paper that is cut to fit the platform. I then die cut the shape and using the negative (background) I center it over the stamped design and secure it with magnets or tape. Then I pop in my die cut shape and perfect stamping!
ReplyDeleteBEAUTIFUL WORK! & tip with the Misti Lite! LOVE your picture of the hummingbirds as well. They ARE AMAZING! ;)
ReplyDelete