Stampbord butterfly

I picked up a bag of assorted Stampbord pieces on sale ages ago and they’ve sat in my stash unloved ever since. Then this post went by in my feed reader; I thought it looked really pretty and was inspired to have a go myself. To actually make one there and then rather than just add it to the list of things to try sometime. Apart from anything else, it would give me the opportunity to also test out the alcohol lift ink.

I grabbed a 2″ square to give myself room to experiment, chose a couple of colours of alcohol ink — a purple and a green — and dripped them over the Stampbord. Once the ink was touch dry, I added a few drops of the lift ink to a foam pad and applied it through a stencil. Then I carefully dabbed off the ink with some tissue to avoid smudging it. The lift ink doesn’t take all the ink off the Stampbord, but it does remove enough to add some fun texture.

Next, I picked a suitable stamp — something with enough detail and coverage to be interesting — and stamped it with black archival ink. I let that dry properly before scraping some of it back to white to add shading and an outline to the butterfly.

The antennae had got a bit lost against the dark ink so I drew them back in with an embossing pen and heat-embossed them in silver. I added a few touches of silver to the body and wing spots as well.

The final touch was to wrap silver border tape around the edge to tidy it up. I really ought to seal it to protect the alcohol ink, but I’m not sure what the best thing to use is. Most people seem to recommend using Krylon Kamar varnish with alcohol inks, but that is hard to get hold of in the UK… some experimentation is required.

Supplies:

• Surfaces:
  Stampbord 2″x2″ square
• Colour:
  Ranger Adirondack alcohol ink – amethyst, clover
• Inks:
  Ranger alcohol lift ink
  Ranger archival ink – jet black
  Wow! embossing pen
• Stencils:
  Craft Box UK – bubbles
• Stamps:
  Stampendous – pen pattern butterflies
• Embossing powder:
  Judikins – detail silver
• Miscellaneous:
  scraper tools
  silver border tape