Beautiful Peacock

Hello, Crafters.

I hope you've had a great weekend. 

Please don't forget that today is the last day you can order from the Christmas (Autumn/Winter) Catalogue.

Yesterday I had a play with the Beautiful Peacock Stamp Set which is one of the gifts available in the Sale-a-bration (SAB) Catalogue, which goes live tomorrow. 

This is a two-step stamp set and when I started playing, I assumed it would be easiest to stamp the bird first and then the feathers. 

It didn't take too many tries to find out it was easier to do it the other way round i.e. stamp the feathers and then insert the bird.

I used Berry Burst Ink stamped off once for the feathers, and Rich Razzlebury, full strength, for the bird.

After several attempts to line the bird up - on scrap paper -I found it best to line the top feather of the three tail feathers in the white space first, then the beak in the circle on the feather. 

When I was happy that they were in place, I made sure the neck was in the narrow gap provided and that the bird's body was in place. I gave all areas a quick final check and then went for it! 

By having the body a darker colour then the feathers is a great help with the positioning of the bird. The reason is that - I believe - the body is bigger than the gap available once the feathers have been stamped.

I feel that when the bird is stamped it fills the gap totally, and goes over the edge very slightly, so it doesn't leave any white bits! If you use a darker colour for the bird, it won't show that you have stamped slightly onto the feathers! I hope that makes sense! I need to play with this stamp set some more to prove my theory!

Like most of our 2-, 3-, and 4-step stamp sets, once the lining up points have been sussed, they are fantastic stamp sets, and that certainly applies to the Beautiful Peacock Set.
 
Personally, I found the biggest problem was deciding what colours to use, but I'm very pleased with this Rich Razzleberry, Berry Burst and Smokey Slate combo.

I started with a card base of Berry Burst Cardstock (CS), a middle layer of Whisper White CS and a top layer of Smokey Slate CS. 

Once I had dry-embossed the top layer with the Ruffled Dynamic Embossing Folder, I adhered the top two layers together, and tied a piece of the new 3/8" Berry Burst Metallic-Edge Ribbon (page 13) around the lower part and tied it into a bow. 

Then I adhered it to the card base using Tombow. To give the Peacock some background, I made a mask using a PostIt Note. 

With my stamped image covered with the mask, I used Smokey Slate Ink, stamped off once, together with the splodge stamp from the new Waterfront Stamp Set (page 48), and stamped all around the peacock. 

Then I die cut the image using a Stitched Shape Circle Framelit Die, and layered it onto a Berry Burst scalloped circle that I'd die cut using a scalloped circle die from the Layering Circle Framelits Dies. I adhered this image to the card front using Dimensionals.

I chose the Congratulations sentiment from the Petal Palette Stamp Set, and stamped it on a strip of Whisper White CS, using Berry Burst Ink stamped off once. 

Then I used the same splodge stamp for the background to the sentiment, before adhering the sentiment to a strip of Berry Burst CS, which I then adhered to the card front using Dimensionals.

To finish the front of the card, I painted all the remaining white areas of the peacock using my Clear Wink of Stella Glitter Pen, as well as adding a tiny Basic Pearl - this tiny size is now retired - to the peacock's eye.

To finish the inside of the card I added a layer of Whisper White CS, and a top layer of Smokey Slate CS. I found one of my test peacocks, and die cut the head and shoulders using the small Stitched Shape Circle Framelets Die.

I adhered it to the bottom right hand corner, and my final, final touch was finishing this peacock off with my Clear Wink of Stella Glitter Pen!

There are several other options available for this stamp set, so I'll be having more playtime with the Beautiful Peacock Stamp Set! Until tomorrow, happy crafting.

JanB.