Chirpy, Chirpy, Cheep, Cheep ! ~ Stamps and Stencils ~ New Challenge.

Hi everybody! It's my turn to host this month's challenge over at the Stamps and Stencils blog. I love listening to the birds singing  at this time of year, so I have chosen a challenge that celebrates our love of these little creatures. I want to see projects that have a bird somewhere on them. The only rules we have over at Stamps and Stencils, are that your mixed media project,s include some stamping, stenciling, or even both! Full guidelines to our challenge can be found over on the Stamps and Stencils blog.
For my project this month, I decided to use some of the items I've been hoarding for a considerable time! first up, is the Burlap Panel I've used as a substrate. To begin, I spread some patches of Crackle Medium onto the surface and left it to work it's magic......

 Once the cracks had dried, I painted Deco Art Antiquing Medium, onto the paste, working it into the cracks in order to add more definition. I then used a Tim Holtz, Flourish stencil with modelling paste, that I had firstly coloured with a tiny bit Victorian Velvet Distress Paint.

This added just a hint of colour. I left this to dry and turned my attention to making some fabric flowers. This gave me the opportunity to use a new product, Finnabair's Fabric Sculpture Medium. I die cut some Tattered Florals flowers and soaked them with the medium. I placed each flower shape into the wells of a plastic palette and put them in a warm place to dry....

Once dry I tinted the flowers with Distress Sprays and then layered them together adding stamens and pearls to the centres. I then stamped the bird with Archival Ink, onto a piece of die cut card and added a hint of colour with Distress Ink. I layered a piece of  'vintage acetate' over the surface, which I fastened with a few tiny brads. The next step was to assemble the panel and add a few embellishments. I used dimensional tape on the back of the bird panel and a hot glue gun to secure   the rest of the elements. I find myself using my glue gun quite a lot lately. I like the fact that it gives instant results !

 I hope  this has inspired you to join in with our challenge, just  hop over to the Stamps and Stencils blog, where you'll find all of the challenge details and see a fantastic variety of projects by the rest of the design team. It's great to Have Sue back with us again this month, I'm sure you'd love to join us in welcoming her back. Many thanks go out to Cec, who has done a great job of keeping our lovely blog going ! Hope to see you there !x