Bluebirds of Happiness?

 I have been watching Aaron Leventhal's Hanging with Hero series, and I highly recommend it if you haven't already seen it.  The first episode was with Jennifer McGuire, and the second with Tim Holtz, and they have been so interesting, and really makes you proud to be part of this industry!  I highly recommend that you watch them.  There are more to come, also!!

Recently Simon Says Stamp had a stamp/die set on sale that has been on my wishlist, so I jumped and got it home.  Here's a card I made after watching Aaron's videos, and also being inspired by Yana Smakula's use of these same supplies.  She made her sentiments vertical, which reminded me of one of my all-time favorite Hero Arts sentiment stamps, from 2011.  So I dug it out and here's my first card with my new (to me) goodies!

supplies: white, orange, and blue cardstock, Simon Says Stamp Printmaking Birds stamps and matching dies, medium and dark blue and orange inks, sentiment from (retired) Hero Arts Made with Love, MFT Wonky Stitched Rectangle die

Following Yana's example, I stamped my sentiment to one side, then perched 1 bird on top of the vertical element and then dispersed the other birds all around it.

This stamp set consists of a set of these 8 birds in outline form, plus stamps for the bodies, the tummies, and the wings and tails.  Once you get set up, you can easily make sets of all different colors of birds, and then use the matching dies to cut them out.  I already have a bag full of 4 other different colors of birds, which I can group all together like this, or use just 1 or 2 combined with something else.  And I really like the sentiments that are included in the stamp set; since I love my birds so much, I know they'll be used lots!

Here's a 2nd card that I made after unearthing this previously stamped plaid background.  I had already stamped birds in aquas and yellows, so all I needed to do was to choose a sentiment from this set!

supplies: white and Surf Blue cardstock, Printmaker Birds and matching dies, aquas, yellows, and black inks, The Greetery Tartan Builder Diagonal layering plaid stencils, squeezed lemonade, tumbled glass, and vintage photo inks

Thanks for visiting me today - and I hope you'll take the time to watch those videos I referenced above!