Butterfly Basics

This card here is a CASE of one doing the rounds of Pinterest lately.  I've told you how much I love the butterfly dies.  Well, this is the stamp set that can be bought in a bundle with the dies called Butterfly Basics.  There are 11 different stamps in this set, and they are all worth having.  Obviously there is a butterfly, actually there are 2 different butterflies, one with a matching die and the other that works with the smallest butterfly punch.  There are 3 beautiful sayings, the fern leaf, honeycomb background, flower and border edge stamped below, postage mark and another tiny flower.  

For the card, the fern leaf has been stamped a couple of times and then the flower has been stamped, coloured with pencils and cut out to place over the fern leaves.  A sentiment was added with a touch of bling and I think this card looks lovely.   My friend made a version of this card in orange and green, and it looked just as beautiful. 

Another birthday

February is one of the busiest months for birthdays for me, and this card was made for my niece.  I'm not normally a fan of pink, but I seem to be using it a bit lately.  I've used one of the beautiful butterfly dies again and placed a background behind the cut out with a bit of sponging towards the outer edges.  

I found some wire lying around the cupboard for antennas, and a bit of bling, and I love it.  

I love my butterfly dies. 

Happy 18th Josh

My son will celebrate his 18th birthday on Saturday and I struggled to think of what sort of card to make.   I found a great idea on a website but the original card was in orange with a basketball theme.  Our family is not really very sporty - Josh is into go karts, fast cars and computers, so I switched the colour scheme and kept it quite simple. Turned out pretty good, I think.  

My little kids are growing up. 

A box of butterflies

A friend at Greg's work recently celebrated her 60th birthday, and as she has been a little down lately because of her mum not being well, Greg asked for a handmade card for him to give her.  

I have been wanting to have another go with a "card in a box" card, so whiled away a few hours working on this.  I realised too late that the photos don't really show this up to its full potential, but this is all I have to show.  The colours of the butterflies were Pink Pirouette and Melon Mambo, very girly, but toned down with the black and white cardstock and paper. 

It's amazing how many butterflies you can pop in these things.  I heard she liked it, so that the main thing. 

A little Lotus Blossom

This is the last card made at our class.  Of course I had to include something using the Lotus Blossom - another freebie from the Sale-a-bration catalogue.  This set is very popular at the moment, and once you use it, you will understand why.  It's beautiful.  It's a three step stamp set, which means there are three different stamps used to create the whole image.  The order shown here is not the order in which you stamp.  The last one is stamped first, then the middle stamp, which give the image the shadow effect, and the last stamp can be stamped in either the same colour, after stamping onto scrap paper first (2nd generation image) or using a lighter colour.  So pretty.  I guess you could use three different colours, but I like the two colours better. 

 

My card is made using Elegant Eggplant for the first two stamps and then Wisteria Wonder. Will show you a few different colours next time.  Have a good week.

Big Day Birthday

Another card we made at our day a week or so ago.  The stamps are from the Sale-a-bration catalogue called Big Day.  This set was on my wish list, as I thought it would be good for doing those hard to design male cards.  Although I guess not many men are really into cake.  Or are they?

When I made my sample card I was originally going to make it a window card with acetate, then thought of making it into a shaker card, but in the end, this is how it ended up.  The colour used is Cajun Craze, which I thought suitable for a male, but when cutting for the class I realised I didn't have enough DSP for everyone, so changed it to either Tempting Turquoise or Coastal Cabana.  The sentiment shows through the window, and I made a template so everything lined up perfectly for everyone. 

 

I wasn't really happy with the sentiment on the front of the card - it just looked wrong, perhaps because it was square, so some chose no sentiment for the front, others used a punch. 

 

And to prove it's not just a set for males, this is a slightly different version for my little sister's birthday.  My daughter said I went a little overboard on the envelope - it did have quite a few 50's on it.  

 

And a couple more

Our second card uses the middle butterfly thinlit, but instead of cutting it out and sticking the butterfly on top of a card,  this time we popped it back into the cut out hole.  There is a piece of acetate behind the butterfly to keep it in place and a large pearl popped in the middle to decorate.  

 

This was another simple card to make.  Just a few circles popped out on the bottom, add a bow and done.  You may have seen a card like this on your travels through Pinterest.  Yes, I did copy the idea from there.  

Here's another copied card using the framelits again.  I think it's the pearls that make it so pretty, or perhaps the butterfly, or perhaps the shimmery cardstock used, or maybe all three together. 

 

You really NEED to get these dies. 

A few little butterflies

Had my first "class" for the year over the weekend and this week you will see some of the cards we made.  

The first card had to be made using the Butterflies Thinlits Dies because I am quite taken with them at the moment.   This was a very simple card to make and one that would suit any occasion by just changing the sentiment.  The largest butterfly dies takes up most of a standard card front, so not much more is needed to finish it off. 

The butterflies was run through the Big Shot to cut and then we used a sponge dauber to colour the outer edges of the butterfly.  I found it easier to sponge while still leaving the outside cut off of cardstock in place - just gave it a little extra "strength" while sponging.  A little bow of twine was added and then a flower made with pressed clay molds popped on top to finish.  The hardest part was sticking the butterfly down, making sure no glue showed through.  But on Saturday they got to use Jac paper, which is double sided sticky paper.  Much easier. 

My favourite was the Wisteria (last one) at first, but now I love the Indigo (first one) best.  Which is your favourite?