Thank you: Distress oxide roses and butterfly

After my first experiment with the double-cut alphabet dies I had enough pieces left over to make another thank you sentiment; all I had to do was come up with a card to put it on. Cue more experimenting, this time with the new Distress oxide ink pads.

I remembered seeing a video of Tim Holtz demonstrating his new stamp platform by creating a controlled watercolour effect with a butterfly stamp and I thought I’d start by doing something similar. What I didn’t remember at the time was that he was using Distress markers (which I don’t have). But I do have a MISTI, a layering butterfly and a set of Distress oxides so I recreated the effect with those: dabbing ink onto small parts of the stamp, wiping off the excess, spritzing with water, stamping, and repeating until happy. I stamped the outline in archival ink to add some definition back and used a white Sharpie to clean up the edges.

For the background, I started by stencilling some roses and leaves around the butterfly with the oxides and then spritzed them with water (shielding the butterfly so it didn’t blend any more). I liked the effect, but it was a little too undefined, so I repeated the stencilling, this time using regular Distress inks. I tied it all together by blending a little green over the remaining white space.

I die-cut the scalloped edge and glued the double-cut thank you along the curve. Finally I mounted the panel on a card base and blended a little more Distress ink over the bottom corners.

Supplies:

• stamps:
  Concord & 9th – butterfly beauty
• dies:
  Concord & 9th – double cut alphabet
  My Favorite Things – stitched scallop basic edges
• stencils:
  Tim Holtz – THS075 roses
• colour:
  butterfly:
  Distress oxides – wilted violet, broken china, cracked pistachio, spiced marmalade
  background:
  Distress oxides – worn lipstick, peeled paint
  Distress ink pads – worn lipstick, peeled paint
• inks:
  Ranger – archival – jet black
• pens:
  Sharpie – extra fine paint pen – white
• paper and card:
  Distress watercolour cardstock
  Papermill Direct – smooth – spring green