Hummingbird Stamp in a Stencil Card

UPDATED: see below!

This morning, a card challenge tweaked my interest, stamping within a stencil. Since I’ve been on this kick of trying out stencils, I decided to participate in this challenge with another experimental card. I used stamps from a variety of Unity KOTM’s, specifically, May 2017, February 2013 and June 2017. I tried a variety of stencils before I selected the one shown in the card. I discovered you really needed to have a lot of open space in the stencil to get a clear image. I felt that it would be better to color and stamp on a soft surface, so I put magazines under the paper. I also just used my fingers to stamp; later I’ll try using a regular block.

To start, I pulled Distress inks out and placed the stencil offset on the paper. I colored the image darker to lighter from top left side to bottom right side. I then pulled Memento inks out, knowing they stay wet longer. I colored the butterfly using multiple inks and just placed the stamp on the paper and used my fingers to impress the image. I did the same with the flowers, although I ended up stamping over the flowers at the end. They were just too delicate to grasp the essence of the images through the stencil.

Once done I spritzed the image with water and distress inks. I used my Misti to stamp the sentiment. I found paper to back the image and pulled the card together with twine, a metal bird and sticky sparkles. 

Hope you enjoy my experiment and if you have suggestions for improvement, please pass along!

UPDATE: only change, this time I used a block, still keeping the magazines underneath. I don’t think the coverage really changed much. Also, I bypassed spritzing with water or ink drops, which I like better. This stencil is a TCW stencil btw!