Gone Crazy!

Okay, okay, I admit it, I caved... I bought the Bird Crazy stamp set!  Well, it just looked like everyone was having such fun with it.  And I've been having fun with it too, even though it may not be in my usual vein.

I do love to watercolour with Distress Inks but I don't have many blueprints, so when Tim's new inspiration tag for July popped up, I thought I should go a bit Bird Crazy and here's the result. (Also, we're not so much for the 4th July this side of the pond!!)

I won't go through the how-to with you.  You'd do far better to hop over and check out Tim's fantastic tag and instructions.

But, as is my wont here at Words and Pictures, I've got a few close-ups to share with you nonetheless.

As well as the crazy birds, I've been playing with some of the new Distress colours for this tag.  All those blues and greens - I'm a happy woman, and now impatiently awaiting the arrival of the new Blueprint Sketch colour in the UK.  







For now it's a combination of new and old.

We have Faded Jeans, Twisted Citron, Mowed Lawn, Peeled Paint, Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Shabby Shutters and Mermaid Lagoon all putting in an appearance... 










... not to mention the Frayed Burlap for shading.  (Oh, and I used Hickory Smoke for my stitching - hickory stitching!)

Since the birds are fairly large, I've ended up working on one of the jumbo, jumbo tags, 10.5 x 5 inches in size.









It's covered with one of the text papers from the Wallflower set.  I started out with a very full-on background from Lost and Found, but decided I'd rather let the watercolouring take centre stage.

The micro-glaze is fabulous stuff.  I nabbed some as soon as it was released, but this was really my first chance to have a play with it.  As you know, life's been a bit busy!










Happily I was able to find lots of winged words amongst the Small Talk stickers...














... one for each of our nervous flyers.















Perhaps they will take flight one of these days!














If they decide to, there are some metal wings to help them out, altered with Mushroom alcohol ink, which means they tone in with the Frayed Burlap beautifully.











I had a ball creating the stripy ribbon.  We're on blues and greens again, I'm afraid, but with such limited time at the craft table, I'm afraid I'm leaning to my favourites rather than experimenting when I do get there.

Oh, one more thing - it's not actual stitching (sewing machines and I continue on terms of enmity), but uses the stitching wheel recommended by the lovely Jenny of Pushing the Right Buttons. Then you just join up the holes with a pen.  Much easier!


You can just about see the gleam of the Glossy Accents applied to their eyes in the photos below...

There's a flurry of posts coming your way over the next few days, starting with a VERY exciting one later today (and back in a more vintage style), but I wanted to sneak this in.

It'll probably get lost in the rush, but so be it.  I had great fun making it and I wanted to share it right away.  I had such a lovely time watercolouring this characterful trio and I suspect they'll be back.

Hope you'll pop back and see all the excitement to come, but for now I'll wish you a lovely Sunday.

I'd like to enter this as my July Tag in Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of 2015.

And since we're in lighthearted vein...

A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican.
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week,
But I'm damned if I see how the helican.
Dixon Lanier Merritt