Hashtag Love #Love

Last December I took a new Altenew Academy class taught by the immensely talented Therese Calvird, the class was called Easy as ABC.

I think every stamper has at least one alphabet, either stamp set or dies, and I think we probably do not use these sets enough, this class gives a lot of tips  and tricks and ideas of what to do with these stamps. I highly recommend it.

In one of her samples Therese had used the Invisible Alpha set which sadly is no longer available. I have this set and love the cool effect it gives my stamping so my class inspiration came from that specific set and I wanted to make Valentine cards using a new (to me) set called Birds of a Feather.

I started by stamping several backgrounds, I found this was much easier to accomplish using my Fiskars stamp press which I don't use that often since the MISTI came into my life. I'm pretty sure this is the same for many people.

In this case it did come in handy as you can stamp and lift quite quickly. I used several light gray inks from Altenew, the three lightest; Morning Frost, Limestone and Silver Lake as well as Soft Granite from Hero Arts but I think any soft color can work d-fine for this project.  I also made a multi colored background that I ended up saving for a future project.

I choose to stamp #love repeatedly on an angle, not very precisely, the stamp press was enough as a guide and I didn't measure anything. This word can work for a Valentine which is what I wanted to make but also for an engagement or wedding card.

I had already stamped several birds in many colors from the beautiful Birds of a Feather set so I decided to use them on these cards, they sit on the letters in the background, not on branches.

On this first card I used the new gray inks; Silver Lake, Gray Denim and Charcoal Suit for the beak and feet along with Heart Beat (favorite red ink ever) and Vineyard Berry to match the red #love.

However I regretted cutting off the birds' tails and so decided to leave them intact on my other two cards.

The card below is my favorite, I used Vanilla Cream, Hazelnut and Milk Chocolate and a bit of Maple Yellow. I also added a bit of a highlight with a Uniball Gold sparkling pen.

On the third set of birds I used Wisteria, Hydrangea, Gray Denim and Charcoal Suit. 

Having the tails stick out from the sides makes these harder to put into an envelope but I might make one to size using my Envelope punchboard. 

JM asked why I didn't have any green birds on any of the cards so I guess I'll have to make another one for him for Valentine's Day!

If you like these cards I would be thrilled if you left a comment below!
hugs,
Helen