Butterfly Delight

 Hello and welcome back.  I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and are ready for a little butterfly sunshine!

Supplies Used:  Butterfly Trellis 6x6" Stencil 26497, Little Etched Butterflies Metal Cutting Die 25609, Celebrate Layered Metal Cutting Die 17454.  Other supplies: Distress Oxide inks in Festive Berries, Spiced Marmalade, Wild Honey, Squeezed Lemonade, Twisted Citron, Salvaged Patina, Prize Ribbon, Wilted Violet.  Gold mirror cardstock, thin acetate strips (from old packaging),  Ranger Foundry Wax in Gilded, and Perfect Pearls in Pearl.

To create the background, I used some Pixie Spray to the back of my stencil to hold it down in place on my card front, but you could also tape it in place.  I applied the Distress Oxide inks in the order listed above, and moving downwards in a diagonal pattern.  I used small finger brushes to apply the ink as there are a lot of colours and the area to cover was small.  I went back over the colours with the previous colour to get a good blend.  Before removing the stencil, I spritzed a mixture of the Perfect Pearls and water over the surface to give a little soft shine.  I removed the stencil and after admiring that magical effect that happens with stencilling, I attached the card front to the card base. 

I die cut the little butterflies twice - once from white cardstock and once from the gold mirror cardstock. I applied the Foundry Wax to the white butterflies, using either a toothpick for the smaller dots, or a fine tipped paintbrush for the larger areas.  I then heat set these with my heat gun to bring out the shine of the wax. 

Next, I glued the gold butterflies down over the areas where the stencil had left the butterfly impression. I folded the wings on the white butterflies upwards to either side of the butterfly body, and glued the bodies down to the matching gold one on the card.  I cut a very thin strip of acetate, about 1/4" wide and 5" long and added  a thin strip of double sided adhesive to one side.  I then cut this strip into 1/2" long pieces by 1/4" wide.  I folded each of these little pieces in half, with the adhesive strip being on the outside of the fold, and just pinched them into place. I then removed the backing off the adhesive strip and placed it so the pointy V is up against the center of the body and the tabs attach to the wings.  Here's a picture to help make it a little clearer.

What the acetate does is it keeps the wings open and raised, but will also fold flat to be put into the envelope.  It's a brilliant idea from Jennifer McGuire and I've used it a few times now when I want to get some extra dimension on my cards.

I die cut the Celebrate die three times from white cardstock and once from the gold mirror cardstock and glued these together to get some dimension.  Finally, I glued the stacked Celebrate sentiment to the bottom of the card.

Thank you for joining me again, and I hope that's given you some inspiration today.