Cracked Crazy Birds

I find making masculine cards a challenge.  I tend to buy cute or pretty stamps and they don't work on "guy" cards.  This week, I needed two thank you cards for men that I don't know very well.  I had been thinking about a technique using my Crazy Bird stamps and Pan Pastels and I had one of those "Aha"moments...I realized that the Crazy Bird stamps would be perfect for the thank you cards!!  Everyone loves them and they are definitely not feminine!!  The technique I wanted to try was to use Versamark Ink and Pan Pastels to add some texture to the birds while coloring them. I got out a bunch of texture stamps...crackle, numbers, swirls, harlequin, chicken wire and a word stamp.  First, I stamped the birds with Ranger Archival black ink, then I masked the eyes and beaks and stamped a pattern/texture onto each bird with Versamark Ink.  I took my brightest Pan Pastels and colored the birds.  When you color over Versamark with Pan Pastels, the stamped areas get much darker so the patterns although subtle, looked great!  Here are the two cards that I made.

I didn't want the sentiment too mushy because like I said, they are guys and I don't know them very well so the outside says, "Life is tough..." and on the inside, it says, ...Kindness matters.  Thank you".  Short and to the point!  You can see the crackle texture on the blue bird much better than on the red bird but it is on both of them.  Here's a close up of the red bird card.  You can see the crackle a little better here...

I wanted to make a little scene for the bird to stand in, so I used the new MFT die-namics called Rolling Hills.  I love how you cut the fence and then cut another fence out of green and use the waste for the grass to glue below the fence!  It is so cool.  I know I'll be using this die a lot!

I used Pan Pastels to color the sky.  I used Pthalo Blue Tint and Violet Tint.  The leaves are another one of MFT's Die-namics called Wild Greenery.   Here are some of the texture stamps I used.  I found that I got the best results when using stamps with smaller less dense textures...although I really like how the bird with the numbers came out.  Here is a sampling of the texture stamps...

I put Crystal Laquer on the birds eyes to make them shiny.  I love how the shiny eyes catch the light...I just love these birds, they make me laugh!

I hope my cards inspire you to get out your stamps and play!  
Thanks for stopping by to take a look :)
Janet