Monday, July 5, 2010

feather printing with Pico

I've been saving all the feathers Pico sheds in two jars—one for body feathers and the other for tail and wing feathers. After working on 2 feather printing projects at work, I decided to try one with Pico's feathers. So I picked out a couple different sizes from my collection to experiment with.

It turns out the tail and wing feathers work much better than the softer, fluffier body feathers.
The process for printing onto paper is fairly simple. All you need is a brayer, an ink pad, scrap paper, tweezers and of course the paper or stationary you are printing on. Here's how you do it:

1. Place a feather face down on an ink pad. Cover the feather and entire ink pad with a scrap piece of paper. Use the brayer to press and roll over the scrap paper, evenly distributing the ink.

2. Remove the paper and lift the feather up with tweezers by the feather's shaft.

3. Place the feather ink side down on a piece of paper and cover it with a clean piece of scrap paper. Use the brayer to transfer the feather ink to paper by rolling over it a couple times.
note: I find you get better results when you print with the same feather a couple times before printing on your final paper. You can use the same feather a dozen times and get good results, so practice before you print on stationary or whatnot.

4. Remove the paper and feather carefully and you should have a lovely transfer!

5. Let the ink completely dry and add stamped words to personalize it.

I finally completely all my birthday thank you cards. I am embarrassed to say that my birthday was about 3 months ago! oops!
I am about to stuff all the envelopes with the thank you cards and some photos of Pico and off in the mail they go!

79 comments:

  1. WOW. That looks really amazing! It would never have occurred to me that you could get such a terrific look so simply. Thanks for sharing!!!

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  2. They look just like acetone photo transfers, except a whole lot cooler. What a splendid idea and totally original! I love how they're reusable. Even though it took you three months, I can totally see people keeping these, they're just too great!

    ♥ Myriam from Myriad.of.Mischief

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  3. this is totally endearing! now if i could only get to do a dun project with Lexi's (my dog's) hair??

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  4. These are really lovely! I'm going to link to this tutorial.

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  5. love it k! i could use a few of these for my job interview thank you notes!! hehe. Lea, you could prob do it with Lexi's dog hair, but it wont turn out as cool. haha. ive only got my hair to do it with....argh that'll be good.

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  6. Superbe idée, je me permet de vous citer prochainement sur mon blog.
    bonjour de la france, à bientot miette

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  7. that's very kind of you ! beautiful !

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  8. waouhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh merci super
    md

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  9. wow -- fantastic! what a great idea.

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  10. That is gorgeous! Now all I need to do is find a nice feather... :)

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  11. got chickens and ducks and geese outside, just off to do some plucking.....!

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  12. This looks great and fun to do! Very creative.. :)

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  13. Gasp I love this! I have a cocketiel who is in love with me and I am sure he would share a feather or two for this... thanks for the fabulous idea!

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  14. wow incredibel it's so simple but thats what makes it look exswided and breath talking how did you come across such a thing???

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  15. I love sending snail mail notes and this is a great project that even I might manage. Thank you.

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  16. This is great.

    Gives me some wonderful ideas. Thanks! :)

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  17. Great project and looks so professional!

    Paul
    www.PaulByronDowns.com

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  18. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  19. Mixing media is always the way to go! It keeps people on their toes...

    whojustsaidthat.blogspot.com

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  20. Wow, I've never seen anything quite like it! Lovely.

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  21. this is amazing, i never could have imagined that such a little work and some creativity could lead to such good results, it goes to show how good things can look

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  22. ooooo - Thanks for the idea - Thank you cards here I come!

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  23. What an awesome idea! I've been a feather collector.... I have a hawk wing feather (my most prized) and many owls, crows, stellar jays.... all mine are from the wild.

    I wish there were a way to make a print of the hawk one without ruining it.

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  24. These are so beautiful. I am curious though, can you get more than one print out of a single feather?

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  25. Sorry. I should have read your whole post first. I was just too excited to give it a try. Thanks

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  26. Fantastic idea! Thanks for sharing!

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  27. I love this! I want to do it on a tote bag!
    http://www.clever-jenoe.blogspot.com

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  28. Fantastic!!! I have sooo many feathers from a bird help center.....oh boy,,,will I be busy now!!!

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  29. A real good idea! I think you can do the same thing with leaves?!

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  30. Very cool! I wonder what else you could do that with? And the THaNk YoU's are very sweet too.

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  31. Wow. I might actually be able to do this!! What an inspiration.

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  32. mmm... i love this.. <3
    great work!!!




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  33. Aw!
    This is simple and delicate!
    Thank you so much for this tutorial!

    Dita
    http://handmadenest.blogspot.com

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  34. This is just gorgeous! So simple and elegant! I do a lot of stamping and so this is very interesting to me! Wonderful blog!

    Holiday Greetings to you,

    Betty
    The Gossamer Tearoom

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  35. I love this... one of my daughters collects feathers on our hikes... I would love to do this with her.

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  36. What a fabulous idea and a great tutorial too. I am definitely going to try this
    Lowri :-)

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  37. Brilliant idea and tutorial. Thanks. Definitely pin worthy

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  38. This is really creative, I mean using actual feathers for the stamping? Never thought of that! I love the clean and elegant finish. Great idea!

    Annabella Merlin
    Creative Photo Albums

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  39. This is a great idea, thanks for sharing!

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  40. Just beautiful. Would it work on fabric, you think? I'm always finding amazing feathers on my walks, now I can share them!

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  41. Just beautiful. Would it work on fabric, you think? I'm always finding amazing feathers on my walks, now I can share them!

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  42. Un-be-lievable! So creative! Beware, pigeons, I'm coming! =)

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  43. This is such a nice and fascinating blog, i love making things too as they make me realize how creative and skilled i am. Its obvious that you have passion to make things, this blog is just amazing. I have actually taken the tutorials into consideration, who knows i might be doing the same.
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