Sympathy Butterfly Card

 Oh my, time is slipping away on me again.  After a long day of painting shelves for closets and holding boards for my hubby to screw things together, it seems I only crash each night.  I thought I'd get so much done stamping-wise and posting on my blog, but alas that has not been the case at all.  I needed to make a sympathy card  2 weeks ago and got it off in the mail right away.  It's a good thing I remembered to take a picture before it slid into the envelope!  Now I've finally got the time to post it!

I wanted to use one of the beautiful new butterflies from the Butterfly Bijou 6" x 6" Designer Papers.  They are all so pretty I'm finding I want to add them to everything!  This one makes the perfect focal point as a reminder of new life in Christ after our earthly death.  Just like a butterfly, we will be transformed and made new again.  How appropriate for a sympathy card.

The base of this card is Bermuda Bay cardstock cut at 8 1/2" x 5 1/2" and folded in half.  The Basic White layer was first cut to 5 1/4" x 4".  Then it was die-cut with the geometric die from Eclectic Layers Dies.  (At least that's what I think the name is!  It was a left-over piece I had on hand.)  

 I've always loved the open cut-work look on a white layer with a pop of color showing thru for a nice contrast.  This time I used Granny Apple Green for this.  It was attached to the back of the white layer, which was then added to the Bermuda Bay card base using Dimensionals.

The sentiment is from the Sale-a-bration set called Heal Your Heart.  I love the sentiments in that set and will probably be using set for a good long while yet.

The butterfly was die-cut from one of the sheets of the Butterfly Bijou DSP using the Brilliant Wings Dies that coordinate.  The die cuts out 6 butterflies at once and then you can add them anywhere you like,  This pretty one has 3 Mini Dimensionals tucked under his body to help him soar.

The rest of the card was kept clean and simple to let the card elements stand on their own.  I thought anything else would detract from the beauty and simplicity.  There you have it.  Today's card is very easy and quick to make, but I love the clean lines of it.  Tell me what you think.  

The end of March is coming up soon.  If you're thinking of placing an order yet this month, I would appreciate it if you would choose me as your demonstrator.  And then be sure to use the Host Code to get your goodie from me for ordering this month as a thank you.  You guys are the very best and I love you all!  Thank you for the lovely cards that you've been sending.  I love them all.  What a blessing you are to me!

Inky hugs,

Sharon

Blended Birthday Butterfly

 After I made the butterfly card from the last post, I knew I needed to play around with this set again.  This time I actually stamped the 6 butterflies that come all together on one large stamp.  They are stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink onto Basic White cardstock.  This would have been an excellent time to use a Stamp-a-ratus as just one corner of the stamp was giving me fits.  Finally, I just decided to go with this one and quit fretting about it.  I was able to get 5 really good images for my Hostess Club ladies, but mine... hmmm, not so much.   Sometimes you just have to go with the flow or drive yourself a little crazy.

Oh my, getting a good look at this picture on my computer makes me wonder what I was thinking.  All the little speckles that look perfect in person seem to look a little smudgey.  Oh, maybe that just might be my computer screen, silly me!  Ok, back to this lovely butterfly creation.  Have you been using the Blending Brushes yet?  If not, you really needed to start playing with them.  The outer parts of the wings were softly colored in with Pool Party.  Then I went back in with Pretty Peacock ink to darken the center near the body.  I played around with adding a bit of Pretty Peacock Blender Pens right next to the body and a bit on the wings.  Then I added some Smoky Slate Blender Pens on the body.  It got just a bit too dark, so stroked on a tiny bit of the Color Lifter along the right edge of the body to give it more definition.  Yes!  Just the look I wanted.  Almost...

I thought the butterfly needed to shimmer in the light, so I stroked on some Wink of Stella to the outside of the wings and lightly brushed in to the center.  Just Gorgeous!

With the butterfly being so ethereal, the background needed to be as light as a breath of spring.  Back to the Blending Brushes!  I used Daffodil Delight along the diagonal, next was Pool Party.  Lastly was the Pretty Peacock to darken the opposite corners.  I find it interesting how you can use bright or intense colors, and by using a light touch you can achieve something as bright and airy as this background.  

It did need some extra interest though.  I speckled the background with Basic Black marker, but it just wasn't enough.  After wishing I had some sort of bling embellishments that weren't all packed away, thought of adding more Wink of Stella.  Spattered that on all over the background. The look is very subtle until the light hits it just right and then WOW! 

The sentiments were stamped from the Butterfly Wishes stamp set onto Basic White cardstock.  I used the Pretty Peacock ink for the sentiments both inside and out.  The Double Oval Punch was used for the sentiment layer and the Basic Black layer too.

Since I had already stamped those 6 butterflies and die-cut them, I figured I might as well grab another one for the inside of the card.  This little one was colored with the Blending Brushes and Daffodil Delight ink.  To add a bit more color, I used the Daffodil Delight Dark Blender Pen on just a few sections of the wings.

To continue with the look from the card front, I used the Blending Brushes with Pool Party and Pretty Peacock inks around the lower edges.  Oh, I'm so loving both the Butterfly Brilliance Bundle, the Blending Brushes, and of course, my Wink of Stella.  For me this card has all my favorite things!

That's it for today y'all.  Hope you give these fun products a try very soon.  And I hope you love them as much as I do!  If you would like to place an order with me this month, please use my lucky shamrock Host Code.  I've got an idea for something special to share with everyone that places an order with me in the month of March.  A big thank you to all that placed an order last month.  I hope you enjoy your little Ladybug Trinkets.  They are so adorable and add a whimsical touch to your creations.

Thank you for stopping in today to see what's new.  We'll be packing up the moving truck on Saturday and driving to our new home on Sunday.  Whew! I was beginning to wonder if I'd be stamping on the little coffee table in the living room for the foreseeable future.  But it's finally, really happening and we're so excited.  Worn out, but definitely excited for this new adventure in our lives.  Look out grandkids - here we come!

Happy stamping with love,

Sharon

If you're interested in the Butterfly Brilliance Bundle and all the other lovely items in this suite, check out the flyers below:

Sneak Peak - Spoiler Alert!

Ok, if you're one of those people that never want to know anything ahead of time, just pass this post up and go on your merry way.  I've got a lovely suite of stamps, dies, DSP, and more that you can't order just yet.  You have to wait just a few more days if you decide you need these lovelies.  You'll be able to get your hot little hands on them on March 2nd.  Now see, that's not so long to wait, is it?  So let's see what the surprise is!  Drum roll please.....

Isn't this simply gorgeous?!?  It's amazing that Stampin'Up! comes up with such gorgeous designer paper time after time.  We've had some really beautiful paper recently, but in my humble opinion, this new set of 6 x 6 papers called Butterfly Bijou is absolutely the very best so far.  And this designer paper is just a small part of the new Butterfly Bouquet Suite which is awesome!

This is the very first card I've made using the new Butterfly Brilliance bundle.  The watercolor splotchy background is one of the pretty paper designs, but so is the butterfly accent!  One of the paper designs is just these gorgeous large butterflies.  I would have willingly cut them out to have them, but SU! made a butterfly die that lays out over this paper and cuts out 6 beautiful butterflies at a time.  On this dsp, there are 2 pink, 2 blueish, and 2 golden butterflies, so you have lots to play with. 

Can you believe it took only 8 minutes to make this card, because basically the card designed itself just using the designer papers.  Yes, even with die-cutting the butterflies and sentiment layer, that's all the time it took.  So if you're in a time crunch and need a card right now, this is a real go-to collection.

I started with a card base of Coastal Cabana.  Cut a layer of the Butterfly Bijou dsp that was 5" x 3 3/4" and attached it to a Basic White  cardstock layer cut at 5 1/4" x 4".  This was attached to the card base using Dimensionals to give it a pop.

Next the sentiment layer was cut using Tasteful Label dies on Basic White cardstock.  The words I chose to use come from the Garden Wishes stamp set.  The words were stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink off to the side.  This was attached to the card front using Dimensionals again.  Then the fun really begins...

The Brilliant Wings dies have 12 dies to the set and one of them is the 6 butterflies attached together that fit perfectly with the butterflies on one of the dsp designs.  So with one cut, you have 6 gorgeous butterflies to play with.  I chose to use the largest of the butterflies in this lovely golden color palette to contrast with the blue/greens in the designer paper.  The butterfly was attached using Dimensionals.  The top wing tip actually has two Dimensionals stacked to give it more lift.  This butterfly is beautiful on it's own, but I gave it a few strokes of Wink of Stella to make it even more delicate looking.  I think it shows enough on this picture to give you an idea.  It's really eye-popping in real life.

I added 3 of the Opal Rounds to the card to give it some extra bling without adding to the colors.  The iridescence of them seemed to be just what it needed.  Still very simple, but beautiful!

Since I had an extra strip of the dsp left over after cutting the top layer, it was added to the inside edge of the card.  And then I realized I had 5 more die-cut butterflies from that one piece of designer paper.  So... after looking them over, I decided to stick with the golden yellow accent color and added the small butterfly inside the card to finish.

Can't tell you how excited about this new Butterfly Bouquet collection I am!  Everything coordinates so well and the colors are just yummy - sort of a 'bright pastel' look.  I can't wait to share more ideas with you using this collection.  You know there'll certainly be more!  So many ideas just flitting around in my brain like little butterflies.    'giggle' 

Here's the information about this entire collection.  Go ahead, start drooling now!

Ok, ladies.  Ready, set, shop on March 2nd (if you're like me)!  Keep looking until the end of the post to see all the parts of this collection.  I made the pictures larger so you could actually see them.  There's a lot of goodies in there!

Thanks for stopping by.  Hope you were inspired by maybe the colors, layout, or all the beautiful butterflies.  Enjoy your day.  Hopefully you have a little time set aside to get stamping and be creative.

Happy hugs,

Sharon