Butterflies and Wishes

Sometimes the beauty of a card is found in the simplicity of the design.

TUTORIALSTENCIL

3/28/20232 min read

Would you like to play around with a design like this? You'll find a supply list below, including a link to the stencil I used from A Colorful Life Designs . Follow the link below and use discount code ChrisFan10 to save 10% on your entire order! (Master Creator Bundles are excluded as they already have a 20% discount built in.)

I really like to work in layers: if you've seen some of my other projects here, you already know this. But some designs just don't need it.

Getting started

Card Base: 5.5 x 8.5, scored and folded at 4.25

Card Face: 5 x 4.25

Card Face:

  • I chose a light blue cardstock for the card face. Using a light blue ink I stenciled the butterfly spray moving across the card face, working from barely there at the bottom to very present at the top. In the end I used three different blue inks, carefully controlling the pressure on the brush and building up the layers of ink gradually.

  • When I was satisfied with the inking, I took a blue marker with a very fine point and added three dots down the center of most (but not all) of the butterflies. Then I added markings with a metallic silver pen; again on only some of the butterflies.. My goal with both was to add enough just enough subtle detail for visual interest.

  • I grabbed my white metallic watercolour to spatter randomly across the card face.

  • I pulled out my stamp positioner and placed the sentiment on the card face. I used Versamark and silver embossing powder to create the sentiment.

Assembly:

I glued the card face to the card base.

I added a very narrow silver border to either end of the card using a metallic silver pen.

Final Thoughts:

I love the simplicity of this card. It could have been headed for the garbage, as I forgot to use the anti-static powder on the card face before adding the embossing powder. I took my time with a dry paint brush to wipe away stray bits of powder where I didn't want them. And I got lucky. Phew!

Supplies:

stencil: Butterfly Flight stencil, A Colorful Life Design

ink: Stampin' Up!

metallic watercolour pans: Aoutle, Amazon

Metallic pens: Kaisercraft Metallic gel pens: Amazon, Scrapbook.com

stamp positionerk: Stamparatus, Stampin' Up!

Versamark: Amazon, Simon Says Stamp Scrapbook.com

Silver Embossing powder: Simon Says Stamp, Scrapbook.com, Amazon

Blue cardstock (card face) Stampin' Up!

Card Base: Accent 100 lb., Amazon

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