Birthday: Vellum butterflies

Time caught up with me and I realised that I needed to get a card made for an old friend who now lives abroad. My main aim was to make something pretty and I took my inspiration from one of the cards from the first day of the Clear and Sheer class.

How:

I had a good idea of what I wanted to create, but I hadn’t decided on a colour scheme when I started, so the first thing I did was have a rummage in my box of background pieces to see what inspired me. I found a blue-green watercolour panel I created ages ago and trimmed it down to size. Then I die cut it, leaving a negative flight of butterflies up the panel.

Next I created a panel to go behind the butterflies by running a piece of Neenah solar white through in an embossing folder and blending three colours of Distress ink over it. I decided to give it a bit of shine by brushing on some Perfect Pearls and buffing it well.

I heat embossed the sentiment on a piece of vellum, scored it so it would wrap easily around the butterfly panel, and trimmed it so the ends wouldn’t show through from behind the die cuts. Some thin strips of Scor-tape were used to fix the ends in place. I glued the embossed panel flush to the card base and then fixed the butterfly panel on top.

Originally, I had intended to use the butterflies that I die cut from the watercolour panel as embellishments, but I wasn’t happy with the effect. Instead, I die cut some from vellum, which worked a lot better. I fixed them to the card with some tiny bits of tape — my usual go-to embellishment adhesive, Ranger multi-medium matte, didn’t seem to want to hold — and disguised the tape by adding a sequin on top.

A few small clear sequins scattered across the back and the card was finished.

Class:

Online Card Classes – Clear and Sheer

Supplies:

• stamps:
  Uniko Studio – simply said birthday
• dies:
  Clearly Besotted – butterfly duo collection
• inks:
  Distress Ink pads – lucky clover, peacock feathers, cracked pistachio
  Versamark
• embossing powder:
  Hero Arts – silver
• embossing folders:
  Elizabeth Craft – flower mosaic
• embellishments:
  Doodlebug – 6mm sequins – swimming pool
  Pretty Pink Posh – 4mm sequins – sparkling clear
• paper and card:
  Papermill Direct – plain – teal
  Neenah – solar white – 216gsm
  Pergamano – parchment paper
• miscellaneous:
  Perfect Pearls – perfect pearl
  Scor-tape