Elegant Encouragement | ft. Technique Tuesday "Butterflies", Prismacolor Pencils and Nuvo Gilding Flakes

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

In case you haven't noticed, I am loving these butterflies from Technique Tuesday. It's kind of funny, I bought them a couple years ago and never touched them. I really only got them because they were on sale as the store was closing down, and thought "hey, these are okay ... but the price is amazing!"

It's a single rubber stamp with three butterflies. It wasn't until last week that it occurred to me to cut them apart - which is weird because I cut a lot of stamps apart. Like a lot. Since then, they've been on my desk - which is also weird because I'm crazy OCD about cleaning up between projects.

To begin, I prepped a piece of 65lb black cardstock from Recollections with my powder tool and stamped the small and medium butterfly with VersaMark ink and heat embossed with Sticky embossing powder by Ranger.

I've found that the trick to using sticky embossing powder is to remove the heat as soon as the powder is melted. I get the heat gun good and hot before bringing it to my paper and remove the heat as soon as the powder melts, if I keep the heat on the powder too long it seems to cook and not be sticky; that just defeats the point.

Once all the powder was melted I used Nuvo Gilding Flakes in copper over the sticky lines, pressing down firmly with my finger then burnishing the rest away with a stiff brush. I do this over a piece of clean copy paper, so I can funnel the excess back into the container, all the while trying really hard not to breathe. These flakes are lighter than air and the smallest current sends them flying all over.

I then used my Prismacolor Premier pencils to colour the butterflies. I have done a bunch of cards using these pencils on kraft cardstock, but I think this is the first or second that I have ever done on black and again I am amazed at the vibrancy of the colours.

I started with just a dark and a medium purple, but then brought in a light purple to brighten it up a bit. After I was done, I felt they needed just a little something extra so I pulled in the aqua around the edges of the wings.

Finally, I decided it needed a greeting so I prepped the lower right corner with my powder tool again, and stamped the greeting from a Color Splash set with VersaMark ink and heat embossed it with Copper embossing powder by Recollections. I could have used the same gilding flakes, but was concerned about how small the font is in the first part of the greeting. Sometimes the gilding flakes don't all come away easily and I wanted it to be clear.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Twinkling Wishes | ft. Technique Tuesday "Butterflies" and Twinkling H2O Watercolours

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Yesterday, I reviewed the Luminarte Twinkling H2O shimmering watercolour paints, and briefly showed a panel where I used them to colour butterflies. Today I want to share the completed card that I created for that review.

To begin, I prepped a piece of 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock with my powder tool and stamped the middle and smallest butterflies from Technique Tuesday using VersaMark ink, I then heat embossed them with sticky embossing powder by Ranger.

I have found that the trick to using the sticky embossing powder is to remove the heat as soon as it's melted. If you leave the heat on too long the embossing powder seems to cook and then it won't be sticky.

I then used Nuvo Gilding Flakes in gold to get the outlines of the butterflies.

I used my Distress sprayer to spritz water into my Luminarte Twinkling H2O pots to get them activated. With a light hand I added water to the wing then dropped in the darker colour near the base, and the lighter colour near the tips and blended them together.

I did one wing at a time, because I failed to use watercolour paper for this panel. Had I done more than one wing, the water would have just seeped in and then dried before the paint could be added and the blending wouldn't have been as awesome. I mentioned in the review post that it was very late when I decided to make this panel and honestly I just wasn't thinking. I definitely recommend watercolour paper for use with these paints.

Once all the butterflies were painted and dried, I prepped the lower right corner with my powder tool again and stamped the greeting from CTMH "Sending Smiles" with the VersaMark ink and heat embossed it with gold embossing powder.

I then covered the back of the panel completely with strong two-way tape and adhered it to the front of my standard A2 sized black card base. There was quite a bit of warping from the watercolouring, so even with the entire back covered in adhesive, I still had some lifting. Nothing too bad though. One more reason to use the right kind of paper with this medium.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

Clean and Simple Note Card | ft. Technique Tuesday "Budding Poppies"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Today I have a super clean and simple, single layer note card. I had done a review of the Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers last week, and while I had them out on my desk, I thought I would put together another simple card.

I have never used stamps from Technique Tuesday before and was extremely pleased with the quality of the stamp and the fine detailed lines I was able to achieve when stamping. Definitely a company I will buy from again.

To begin, I cut a piece of Bristol Smooth cardstock to 11 x 4 1/4" and folded it at 5 1/2" to create a landscape side folding card. I then prepped the front with my powder tool and stamped the poppy image from Technique Tuesday and the greeting with VersaMark ink and heat embossed both with gold embossing powder.

I then used the 029 Geranium Red Zig Clean Color Real Brush Marker to add a line of colour at the base of each petal and my water brush to pull the colour up towards the edges. Even though the Bristol paper stops the ink from seeping in and drying too quickly, I still work one petal at a time so I don't get a harsh line of colour.

I then added a strip of gold glitter tape across the bottom as an accent and to avoid having it look as though the flowers are floating in the middle of nowhere. An accent strip adds just a little something extra and grounds the image.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar or over on Facebook, so you don't miss any future posts. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.