A little birdie told me...

Thank you everyone for all the wonderful comments on my new stamps, it is such a relief to hear that you like them. I promised last week that I would show some of my samples in step out, so here is the first one. 

This little birdie is from one of my new mini stamps, he looks so sweet in front of his little house. EM02

I started with one of the smallest of the hanging birdhouses.. 

I mixed some Grunge Paste with  Cinnamon and Chocolate Pudding and applied it quite thickly to the main part of the house. You could use any browns for this part, you just need to get some colour into the paste. 

Next I used a pokey tool to score lines into the coloured grunge paste. Once it was dry I painted the etched grooves with chocolate pudding, I also used it on the roof. 

Here you can see how deep the grooves are, don't be afraid to put the grunge paste on quite thickly to start with. 

This hanging birdhouse is quite flat, but it does have sides that should not be neglected. I applied a little grunge paste, then while still damp I pressed a background stamp (from EDY06) into the paste. once dry I painted the sides with chocolate pudding. 

Next I added a little French Roast, one of my all time favourite colours for adding depth and shadows. 

finally I added a coat of watered down Snowflake, this makes the main part look weathered. 

Now to decorate. I painted a strip of smoothy with Guacamole and Hey Pesto, then I stamped the lollipop flower heads from EDY06. 

I cut them out and then cut them in half to create tiles for the roof. I also stamped the heart-in-a-ring flower head, and cut out just the ring to frame the hole on the house front. The small dotty circle was stamped directly into place using black archival. 

I stamped the mini grasses from EDY05..and added just a touch of Sage to the seed heads. I then stamped the birdie directly to the house front, this was purely to work out my placement 

I then stamped the bird again onto Smoothy.  First I stamped the legs onto painted smoothy, then I stamped the body and the wheels onto plain smoothy, and finally I stamped the heart/wing again also onto plain smoothy. The reason I stamped the legs onto repainted card, is they would be too fiddly to paint after stamping. 

and here are all the components painted.  Because some of the colours are opaques you need to be careful when painting not to go over the inked lines. Though if you do, just bring them back at the end with a black pen.

Glue all the pieces into place, adding the wing on a foam dot just to raise it slightly. The wooden bead is painted with Space Cadet ( totally love this colour) Once dry I inked up the text stamp 'Be Unique' from EDY06... I lay the stamp down, ink side up, then I rolled the bead across the text. I have found this the easiest way to stamp onto beads. 

I think he turned out really cute, hope you like him. If you try out the techniques be sure to let me know. 

Darcy x

My stamps are also available from 

The Craft Barn... Country View Crafts.... The Stamp Attic

Shops with Trade accounts can order online direct from PaperArtsy now, or in person at the Craft Hobby and Stitch International Trade Show, NEC Birmingham, Feb 16-18. PaperArtsy is stand A42, situated as usual in the back left hand corner of the main hall. Shipping of all new products starts immediately: Wednesday Feb 19th, 2014