A quick burst of birdsong

Hello all!  Apologies that I've been MIA again - there's a lot going on behind the crafting scenes at the moment (not to mention preparing for some high-pressure day-job workshops coming up).  All will be revealed in just a few days.

But so as not to leave the blog in complete silence, I'm offering up a quick burst of birdsong today.

There's nothing complicated about these tags.  In fact, they were the result of some joint experimentation with a friend at the craft table, demonstrating some of the differences between Distress Inks and Distress Oxides.  We did some wrinkle-free distressing on some other tags, but these two were the results of our blending and stamping efforts, with some spritzing and flicking too of course...

The colours were her choice - hence the slight departure from the normal palette around here! - but I ended up really enjoying them.  There's a sort of burnished rust and verdigris look which pleases me a lot.  The tag on the left is all Distress Inks, the one on the right is all Distress Oxides (until the very final inking around the edge, that is, and then it was DI on both).






The words are taken from my EAB02 Darkness and Light set.

The phrases are all part of one longer quote (as you can see if you take a look at the whole collection - it's the quote at the bottom of the plate).










But I've used different parts of the quote on each tag to create slightly different thoughts.

They're embossed with Ranger Antiquities Rust powder - which is quite cool up close.











There are things I enjoy about both tags... 

You can't get away from the delight of that Oxide stamping - with such presence and clarity.

Those rapturous birds are an Impression Obsession stamp.














But although the birds are subtler, I do love the translucence of the layered DIs - they have a special depth about them which always makes me happy.

So I'm not going to keep you for long, as you see.  Short and hopefully sweet today.









If I get my workshop planning done in good time tomorrow, I hope to spend some of my Sunday catching up with what you've all been getting up to in Craftyblogland... and if I get bogged down, the visiting will just have to wait a bit longer!

I hope you all have a lovely Sunday, and do come and visit early next week for some big news.  Happy crafting all!

I don't ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful.
Pete Hamill

I'd like to enter this pair of tags at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where, in celebration of Stamptember, the challenge is simply to Stamp It!
Though there's only the tiniest bit of rust involved through that Rust embossing powder (well, and plenty of Rusty Hinge DI!), I'd like to share these in the Rustica theme at the That's Crafty Challenge Blog
And they're also feeling A Little Rusty over at Frilly and Funkie so I'm taking my tags to play along there too