Four-Part Birdie Stencil

We spent many years traveling the circuit of scrapbooking conventions around the country, and this was my favorite stencil to demo--the Asian Artisan bird overlay stencil. It's a four-part beauty that turns out great every time.

Now, we have the luxury of doing the demo blogger-style!

Here's the stencil. Can you see how loved it is? (Read: inky!) There are four overlays . . . the bird, the branch, the bird (part ii), and the leaves. Each element has a small box next to it with a number.

Align the stencil with the edge of your paper, and use a pencil to mark the location of the small alignment box #1.

Apply CS® Sapphire ink to the bird only with a handy dandy CS® ink applicator.

There it is! Beautiful, isn't it?

Reposition the stencil so that hole #2 lines up with the pencil-marked box you drew earlier. The branch should now be in the right spot for the bird to perch.

Sponge CS® Earth ink onto the branch.

Reposition the stencil into the third spot, and add Sapphire ink to the bird (part ii). This time I used lighter pressure to create a softer shade of ink. See the contrast on the bird?

This is fun--take the ink applicator, already loaded with Sapphire ink, and gently swipe it along the bird's belly. Kinda artsy, don't you think? That wee swipe adds so much.

Add layer #4, the leaves, with CS® Leaf ink.

The tree looks a little barren to me, so add a bunch more leaves if you're in the mood. Just keep gently sponging with Leaf ink and moving the stencil around on the paper.

It's a nifty thing to use the CS® 8x8" Grid Ruler, cutting knife and craft knife to trim out the card into an appropriately sized panel.

But, I'm in "demo" mode, so I didn't stop there. I added a bit of "text noise" to the panel with Earth ink. (I usually stamp text at an angle because it's almost possible to create straight patterns with text. One little error, and you've ruined the whole thing. You'll want to avoid that.)

Hmmmm. . . and some watercolor splatter with watercolor crayons.

Yikes, how 'bout some blended oil pastels to frame the edges, and perhaps a few numbers from the County Fair numbers stencil would be cool. Maybe some crumpling? (I'm on a roll now, can you tell?)

Don't forget to stamp your greeting with India Black ink, smooth it out, and attach this lovely piece to a card or scrapbook page. Or, frame that bird.

I framed my bird with lots of paper layers including black, white, blue and green (Come Sail Away collection).

Thanks for stopping by! Let us know how it goes.