Welcome back to the craft room and today’s Happy Spring Butterfly Card post. We have had a few wonderful spring days in between the snow storms in the last couple of weeks. Because of that, I wanted to make a card with the idea of spring, and what better way than to add some butterflies. There are a few interesting techniques in this card; everything from sublimation to finger painting! Let me show you!
The Butterflies
One of the interesting techniques I’ve seen in the sublimation groups is to sublimate onto glitter card stock. Huh? I just had to give that a try, so I dug out my Recollections glitter paper pad and took out a sheet of white glitter card. I found the bright sunny Citric Orange Watercolor Sunset background on Creative Fabrica and printed it onto a piece of A-sub Sublimation paper. Because this little adventure started the week before St. Patrick’s Day, I also found a few images to add to the mix just for fun. Heating up my HTVRont Auto Heat Press, I got ready for what was possibly the best experiment of the month. My first press, was a total flop! Not only did it melt the glitter portion of the card stock, but the A-sub paper also glued itself down tight in a few places.
Following the suggestions from some amazing people on Facebook, I found the perfect time and temperature and ended up with a beautiful piece of patterned glitter card. Before beginning this adventure, I knew I was going to use my Tim Holtz Mini Detailed Butterfly Dies. I cut the base piece out of my new glitter card and the outline from black card. The results are Beautiful! As we all know, the sparkle of glitter is difficult to capture in a picture, but here is a photo that will hopefully give an idea of how pretty it is. The glitter did dull the color of the original image, but that’s a trade off I’m OK with.
The Background
I began the background for this card with a piece of Strathmore Bristol Vellum Surface paper. I used the smooshing technique by adding Brushed Corduroy, Weathered Wood, and Frayed Burlap Distress Inks, and a spritz of Tea Dye Spray Stain to my craft mat. After spraying a little bit of water and running my fingers through the ink to mix the colors a bit, I stared pouncing the paper into the ink. In between layers, I dried the paper with my Wagner heat gun before pouncing back into the mixture for layers.
When I was happy with the look and the card was about 80% dry, it was time for the next step. I ran it through my Sizzix Big Shot machine with the Barn Wood Planks dies by Honey Bee Stamps. These dies are amazing as each one has a different texture pattern. Putting them aside for a little while to dry completely, I moved onto the rest of the card front.
I wanted my butterflies to have a beautiful blue sky background. I love Broken China Distress Ink for this. With my Waffle Flower Blending Brush I colored the top half of the card mat. For the sentiment, I used a much older GinaK and StampTV set called Sending Sunshine with Amalgam ink. This is my absolute favorite set for any spring related card. The little flourishes on the word spring adds a lovely touch with the butterflies.
After this was finished and set aside to dry completely, it was back to the my wood wall planks. To enhance to grain of the wood, I dug down into my 5-year old self and started finger painting. Starting with Vintage Photo Distress Ink I lightly dragged my finger across to just skim the surface of the texture. To add a bit more depth of color I did the same with Scorched Timber Distress Ink. With a small detail blending brush I ran Scorched Timber around the edges to distinguish the planks from each other on the card front.
The Finished Happy Spring Butterfly Card
After all that work was finished, it was finally time to put the card together. On my ink blended panel, I added the wood planks with Art Glitter Glue. After trimming the edges flush with the panel, I added a bit more Scorched Timber Distress Ink to the edges. For the butterflies, I only glued down the bodies. This gives the card a bit of dimension in addition to the texture from the glitter card and the wood planks.
I really love how this Happy Spring Butterfly Card turned out. Having said that, the next time I use this die, I will trim off some of the bottom wood plank. As it is, the card is cut almost in half and looks off to me. The die cut is 7/8” tall and I think removing an 1/8” to 1/4” would balance the card much better. What do you think? Should I remove just a bit to better balance the scale? Or do you think it looks OK? Let me know in the comments below.
I have one other card featuring the fun Honeybee Stamps Barnwood Planks die. You can check that out here: Mini Slimline Envelope. Thank you for joining me today, have a fantastic week and I will see you back in the craft room soon!
Shop For Supplies Here
PIN THIS POST FOR LATER!
