As most of you know, we moved into our new home on the bayou back in February. Since we’ve been here, I’ve seen more birds than I’ve ever seen at any of our previous homes. Most are pretty common, but I have seen a few that I’ve never seen before and a few that are pretty rare. I’ve really enjoyed taking pictures of these birds and sort of documenting them, so I decided to join my new love for “birding” and my long time love of crafting together for this one project. Hopefully it will be ongoing and have sever entries. For this project, I decided to do an art jounal. I started with the Blue Jay. You may say, he’s pretty common. Well maybe, but my Blue Jay is not very sociable so he doesn’t make it to the feeder very often, and when he does, he’s usually gone before I can get back with my camera. LOL.
When I got this idea, I got really excited and cut out several birds. I’m hoping that my enthusiasm carries on and I have to make more. LOL. For these birds, I used the Cardinal die from last years Diecember from http://www.simonsaysstamp.com. It was a free gift with purchase of any Tim Holtz product. and of course, I made a purchase. LOL. I also used the Feathered Friends (664433) set. The paper that I used was just plain old water color paper. I took an afternoon and had my self another Vagabond party and cut out several of each set and glued them together. I also flipped the paper over and cut them out backwards so that they could face the other way.
The next day, I decided that all those birds needed some branches, and of course the branches needed some leaves. I used a few differents Distress Oxide Sprays in several shades of browns and greens. Then I used Stampers Anonymous Birch & Pine (CMS280) and Papillon (CMS106) stamp sets to give them a little dimension and texture. Then I had another little Vagabond party. I used the Sizzix Bigz die Bird Branch (657833), an obvious choice LOL, and Garden Greens (661206) thinlits set to cut out the leaves.
Now of course all of this is being done while I waited on a stamp set to come in. LOL. I decide to decorate the cover of my journal. For this art journal, I chose the Dylusions Creative Flip Journal. It’s perfect size for what I had in mind. I decided to use the Tim Holtz idea-ology collage paper and my Distress Collage Medium. The name of this particular design on this paper is Aviary. It has tons of beautiful, vintage birds and scripty things. Beautiful!! Just the paper wasn’t enough, so I decided to add a flower just in case I wanted to include flowers in my nature art journal. The die set that I used was Sizzix Brushstroke Flowers #1. Naturally, being from Louisiana and documenting LA nature, I went with a Magnolia. I used my Distress Crayons to color it. The tag was made with just regular cardstock, but printed on my toner printer and run through my Heidi Swapp Minc. And of course every thing needs a little Vintage Photo to give it that distressed vintage look. LOL
Unfortunately, I neglected to take any pics of the coloring process of the bird. But I can tell you I used my Distress Crayons, if that helps any. For the page background, I used Distress Oxides in Speckled Egg, Salvaged Patina, and Tumbled Glass and then distressed the edges with Vintage Photo. I then used the stamp set Field Notes (CMS396) and Wendy Vecchi Archival ink in Cornflower Blue to add another layer. I just love crackle paste, so I used that and the mini layering stencil THMS031. I layed it sideways and it filled the bottom of the page just perfectly. Once that dried, I glued everything on the page with my Distress Collage Medium.
I think I’m pleased with the way this turned out and I think this is going to be a fun ongoing project. I already know which bird I’m doing next. I just can’t wait to see what other birds are gonna show up in my yard!! I hope y’all enjoy this little series as much as I think I’m going to. LOL
Until next time,
Jennife
J Cooper Creates 