Butterfly of Happiness

This is the card that I stamped for my December card swap with my downline group... I love the colours on this card - Cool Caribbean, Lavender Lace and So Saffron accented with Basic Black and Very Vanilla.

I really like how the butterflies pop off of the card and thought I'd give you a couple tips on how I made them. It's a bit difficult to see on the scan, but there are two different colours on the butterflies - Cool Caribbean wings and a Lavender Lace body. To do this, I inked the stamp first in my Cool Caribbean pad. Then I coloured the Lavender Lace on with my Stampin' Write marker. I did the same on the words - inking the whole stamp in Cool Caribbean and then colouring the word "love" in Lavender Lace with the Stampin' Write Marker. Before stamping, I breathed on the stamp to re-moisten it. I wouldn't want to be colouring one colour on top of another too much as it will transfer colour onto the marker - I always make sure that I ink with the lightest colour first. When I was making several of these, I just wiped off as much of the Cool Caribbean ink as I could with my finger before colouring the Lavender Lace on to help save my Stampin' Write Marker. It was a bit finicky and messy but worth it! Then I coloured my marker out on scrap paper when I was finished and it refreshed back to the correct colour in just a few swipes.

I used the "splatter" stamp from Itty Bitty Backgrounds with Lavender Lace and then So Saffron ink before cutting the butterflies out. Here's a tip for when you are cutting something out... use sharp scissors - our Paper Snips are awesome - and then instead of moving your scissors to cut around the image, hold your scissors steady and move the card stock. You will likely get a much smoother cut.

After I cut the butterflies out, I gave them some dimension by curling their wings. I did this by wrapping the wings around a Stampin' Write Marker. Then, to help keep the shape of the wings, I cut a Dimensional in half and put it behind the curved wings.

The other thing that I needed to watch when making this card was where I put the adhesive to attach the vellum paper. I just put a little spot in the centre of the square so that it would end up covered by the butterflies and would not been visible on the finished card.

My inspiration for this card came from a card that I received from another demonstrator, Roz. Here's the card that she created... I changed mine just a bit and added the ribbon.

Happy stampin'!

Bev.

(All images copyright 1990-2006 Stampin' Up!)