- Aug 1, 2021

Butterfly Brilliance

Well I stepped right out of my comfort zone today and created a card that I love but is very different from my usual style. Even the method of creating it was alien to me.

The downside is I didn’t take photos of each stage, I wasn’t that organised and it just kind of evolved. I'm not going to lie, the main image layer was heading for the bin on more than one occasion but I realised that what I would normally consider a mistake just added to the 'arty' effect.

I will do my best to talk you through what I did to create this and be warned, I used so many products, my desk was a chaotic mess by the time I was finished.

I started with a piece of watercolour paper and heat embossed in white a trio of butterflies (Butterfly Brilliance) and some leaves and flower stems (Sending Hugs).

I then added a colour wash using water painters and drops of ink from refill bottles.

With the paper still a little wet, again using a water painter and ink, I coloured the leaves, flowers and butterflies. The colours bled a bit, this was the first time it nearly went in the bin.

Next I dried it using my heat tool and then added some white embossed random dots (Forever Fern).

The last bit of adding colour was to stamp some texture, I probably should have done that before embossing. I stamped in Pool Party and used stamps from Very Versailles and Tasteful Touches.

Once I was happy with the design, I trimmed to a 5 inch square and added a torn strip of vellum embossed with musical notes (Merry Melody 3d embossing folder). The vellum cracked a little (almost binned again!) and is folded around and stuck to the back of the watercolour paper.

The layer underneath is also 5 inches square, I've used Fresh Freesia cardstock adding colour using blending brushes and also the same texture stamps to tie it in with the main image layer.

A length of Pool Party sheer ribbon is attached to the back of the image layer and tied in a bow over the vellum strip. The two squares are stuck to the card base at a slight angle, I usually go for very straight, perfectly lined up layers, not this time!

The sentiment is from Very Versailles and has been heat embossed onto Evening Evergreen cardstock and fussy cut. Lastly I added some copper coloured Brushed Metallic Dots.

So what do you think? Vintage, shabby chic, whimsical, arty? I'm at a loss of how to describe this card but I absolutely loved creating it and so glad I resisted binning it along the way.

I even used some of the off cuts to make a tag using Tailor Made Tags and Brilliant Wings.