Smile: Brusho butterfly

What:

As is the way on YouTube, some people were unnecessarily negative about a recent video from the wonderful Kathy Racoosin. As is the way with Instagram, the IG Crafty Crew responded with cards of support and I was invited to join in.

How:

I stamped the butterfly with Versamark on watercolour paper and heat embossed it in black. Then I got to play with the Brusho colours for the first time.

First I wet the butterfly — being careful to stay within the outline — and sprinkled some of the Brusho powder over the wet area. I used a brush to nudge the colour into all the corners, dabbed a couple of bits with some kitchen roll where it was mixing too much and then waited for it to dry.

For the background I started by mixing a little of the powder with water in a palette. Again, I wet the area I wanted to add colour to and used a brush to drip the two shades of green onto the background until I had the coverage I was happy with.

Once it was all dry I added a spritz of gold mist.

The “smile” letters were stamped with pigment ink. The matching dies were out of stock when I bought the stamps so I had to go searching through my stash to find something that would fit and, luckily, the circle in the Sizzix basic shapes framelits set that I got with my Big Shot was just the right size. I shall still get the matching dies though as there are six in that set and it is a bit tedious cutting them out one at a time.

The butterfly panel was trimmed to size and mounted on a dark blue card base and then the “smile” letters were popped up on circular foam pads.

Lessons Learned:

Although I knew that the Brusho colours are very intense and that a little goes a long way, it’s not until you use them that you realise exactly how little you need.

Supplies:

• stamps:
  Stampendous – penpattern butterflies
  Lawn Fawn – Owen’s ABCs
• dies:
  Sizzix – framelits – basic shapes
• inks:
  Versamark
  Avery Elle – pigment ink – aquamarine
• colour:
  Brusho colours
• embellishments:
  Prima – color bloom – gold foil
• paper and card:
  Daler-Rowney – the Langton – watercolour paper block
  Papermill Direct – plain navy
• miscellaneous:
  docrafts – stick it! – foam dots