That's Crafty!: Lift Each Other Up! by Amanda Pink

Hi Everyone,

For todays post I decided to pare things back and just use inks and stamps to create an art card that features three colourful quirky birds who are showing and tweeting how easy and indeed how important it is support each other and ...

...'Lift Each Other Up'.

I worked on white and black card stock throughout.

Watercolour cardstock/ paper would be a good alternative option.

To begin I stamped the birds on a piece of lightweight card and cut each of them out. These were my bird 'masks'.

On a long strip of white card I stamped each of the birds one standing on top of the other using the bird 'masks' to ensure the feet of the top and middle bird sat on the head of the bird below and not behind.

The bird 'masks' were also used to shield the birds when I added colour to the background.

I created a summer grassy setting for the background using Tim Holtz Distress Inks. Shades of blue for the sky (Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean, Stormy Sky, Chipped Sapphire) and greens for the grass (Shabby Shutters, Peeled Paint, Forest Moss). I applied the inks with a blending tool and foam.

I then lightly flicked the inky background with water, dabbed with a paper towel to create some watermarks.

For the grass effect detail I used the 'sketchy line" detail stamp from That's Crafty! Flowers Collection 3 stamp set designed by Melina Dahl stamping just parts of it with Archival ink ( Olive, Jet Black)

To add touches of detail and interest around the sides of the background I added some text stamping using one of the stamps from AALL and Creates #457 stamp set designed by Bipasha BK, again stamping with Archival ink ( Cobalt)

Then it was time to colour the birds. Their quirky individual characters just seem to shout 'colour' to me so after stamping each of them onto white card, and cutting them out I water-coloured one yellow, one orange, and one pink using Tim Holtz Distress Ink Reinkers (Mustard Seed, Carved Pumpkin, Rusty Hinge, Picked Raspberry)

The watercoloured birds were adhered on top of their stamped background image and their beaks and eyes decoupaged. With a few drops of Glossy Accents in the bird eyes and the black swirls, some white highlights and some white paint splatters the background was finished and ready for the birds important tweet (computer generated) ....

...Lift