Delicate Floral Hummingbirds

I made today's card for my husband. Our anniversary is in two weeks. He likes bright colors, so I hope he likes it! I made this with Spellbinders Delicate Floral Hummingbirds die. I love Spellbinders! Their dies, stamps, and hot foil plates are all such great quality. 

This die set has a die and outline die. If you only use the main die, it will cut out the middle without changing the size of your cardstock. Since this is so large, I wanted to cut out the entire image since I didn't want anything larger than 5"x7". Protip: if you want a smaller card front, you can always trim it down.

I cut the image from Lawn Fawn Noble Fir cardstock. Then, I took a small blending brush and inked shadows with Rustic Wilderness Distress Ink. To make the diecut appear more realistic, I inked at the base of each leaf and in the curves of the vines. 

After die cutting all of the layering pieces out of Neenah Classic Crest Cover Solar White 80lb cardstock, I began to Ink the pieces. For the wings, I used Mowed Lawn, Rustic Wilderness, Picked Raspberry, Candied Apple, Wild Honey, and Black Soot Distress Inks. To try and make the birds more realistic, I first searched images of hummingbirds on the internet.

I adhered the birds to the background. Pro tip: glue the individual pieces onto the base. I first glued the birds together, but they didn't fit. Luckily, I was able to gently take them apart. 

I inked the flower buds with Shaded Lilac and Blueprint Sketch. Pro tip: apply light layers of ink and keep inking until you reach your desired color. Also, start with the lighter ink, then blend dark shade on top.

For the leaves, I used Peeled Paint and Shabby Shutters Distress Inks. I wanted these leaves lighter than the vines so they would stand out more.

I used the same colors of ink for the large flowers as I did for the buds. I added Wild Honey for tge stamen. The stamen need to be glued on first, then glue down other flower pieces.

I cut out small flowers and inked them with Wilted Violet, Villainous Potion, and Wild Honey. I used the assembled flowers like embellishments onto the finished piece.

I used shiny black cardstock for the word and Hero Arts Lapis cardstock for the shadow. The blue cardstock closely matches the Wilted Violet ink. I didn't want to use white because I wanted the sentiment to be more cohesive than stand out too much.

Here's the finished card. I'm in love with it! I placed the completed piece onto a 5"x7" piece of Gina K Skeleton Leaves cardstock. I didn't want white. I tried several colors and this soft, yellowish cardstock looked the best to me. I put the card front onto a 5"x7" card base made from Neenah 100lb cardstock. Thank you for looking at this blog post. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.