Butterflies In A Burst of Color

Hi Everyone,

Summer is in full bloom and so is this card. The background is an explosion of color with simply butterflies fluttering about. Take a look at how simple this project is, using the My Favorite Things Beautiful Butterflies stamp set.

Explosion of Color Butterflies by The Foiled Fox

The background of this card is what gives it the burst of color and it could not be easier to create. The only rule you need to stick to is not to muddle the colors too much so it doesn’t all turn to brown!

The card begins with a piece of watercolor paper. Clean water was brushed onto the panel, then highly concentrated droplets of watercolor were added. I started with one color and then another, being careful not to mix the colors too much.

Explosion of Color Butterflies
Once a few different color splotches were added, I spritzed the panel lightly with water, just to get a little blending going on, but again being careful it didn’t turn into a muddy mess. Then, more color was added to intensify the color in areas. With the panel still wet, I splattered green, then yellow watercolors, then let the panel dry.

Explosion of color butterflies
There are several stamps to create a beautiful butterfly in this stamp set. I wanted the butterflies to be simple, so I only used one butterfly outline stamp and stamped a few butterflies with Delicata Black Shimmer ink onto white card stock. Since the Black Shimmer ink is sparkly, I wanted the rest of the butterfly to have a shimmery appearance so once the ink was completely dry, I added clear Wink of Stella to the body of each butterfly. It is hard to capture in a photo, but in real life, it is very sparkly yet subtle.

Explosion of color butterflies

Next, I cut two “happy” sentiments by Heidi Swapp out of heavy white cardstock and glued them together to give some thickness to the sentiment. (Hint: a glue pen is great for this task!)

To complete the sentiment, I stamped ‘birthday’ onto a strip of Licorice Twist card stock using Versamark ink, then sprinkled white embossing powder and heat set it. By the way, be sure to first prep your paper with anti-static powder. It will save you all kinds of anguish if you are generous with the powder. You don’t want the embossing powder sticking to all the wrong places!

Explosion of color butterflies
All that’s left is assembly. Using a white card base, I added a yellow panel on top, then the watercolored panel. The butterflies were positioned and applied with foam tape in the center and the sentiments were added. And, that’s all there is to it.