Brushstroke Birds

Happy Friday :-)

I received a shipment of some brushstroke stamps a little while ago, and finally I made my first card with one of these pretty stamps. I had already stamped it a week or so ago just to try out the stamp, but it was just laying on my desk waiting to be used.  I wasn't sure I liked all the colors I used on the birds, but didn't want to waste my good watercolor paper, so I just hung on to it.

 I used different colors of distress markers for coloring directly onto the stamps, then lightly spritzed it with water before stamping onto Winsor & Newton watercolor marker paper. 

Yesterday I realized I needed an anniversary card for my aunt and uncle, and then I thought this image was perfect for this occasion.

I used a zig clean color brush pen to add some blue shading around the image. I also wanted to add some stenciling to be able to play along in the CAS Mix up challenge, where the theme is stamping, stenciling and choose one more from their side bar list. For my stencil I used "Hypnotic" by Penny Black in two of the corners. It's hard to tell I used a stencil, it blends too well with the shading I did around the image. Stitching was the other option I chose from the challenge blog's side bar. I am not sure if my design is clean enough, as I ended up stamping some music notes onto the card...

I finished off the card by adding the sentiment which was stamped onto vellum paper.

By the way I have this stamp listed brand new in my Etsy shop, along with a few other brushstroke stamps if you are interested.

Thanks so much for stopping by!
Enjoy your weekend! It's finally nice and sunny over here!