Botanical Butterflies

Hi Creative Friends,

I was in the mood for a vintage-style botanical card design. I settled on using the beautiful Butterfly Charmer stamp by Penny Black for my butterflies. There are so many gorgeous butterflies in this collage-style stamp to choose from that it was a perfect choice.

I didn’t have a complete vision of my card design before I started so I began with the main “characters'”. I often use this technique and let the design evolve on its own.

So, with that in mind, I stamped the Butterfly Charmer stamp onto a piece of hot-pressed watercolor paper using waterproof ink like Versafine Black Onyx. I used a stamp positioner for this so I could stamp again if the images didn’t stamp well the first time.

Once the ink was very dry, I began painting a variety of butterflies. I primarily used Daniel Smith Quinacridone Coral, along with brown, yellow, and black colors. You can use any watercolors you love but Daniel Smith is my go-to. Their colors are packed with color and blend magnificently. I have added a Daniel Smith dot chart to the supply list. These dot charts are amazing. They have oodles of colors to choose from and each dot, even though it doesn’t seem so, contains a ton of paint to use for many projects.

When the butterflies were painted and the paint was dry, I carefully cut out each with a pair of detail scissors and set them aside while I made a vintage-y panel.

This panel was made by first blending on Antique Linen distress ink to a Bristol paper panel, then adding a little Wild Honey distress ink at the bottom. Next, I inked the Penny Black Script Background stamp with Tea Dye distress ink and lightly stamped it over the panel. Ink splatters of Wild Honey, Quinacridone Coral, and black were added to the panel. When dry, the panel was cut out using an Antique Frame die.

I cut another panel of Kraft cardstock that was a little larger than the last one. Then, again, I cut yet another panel that was larger than the last from Alexandra Renke Autumn Calm paper.

There were two more panels to cut before assembly. I cut a Kraft cardstock panel using the Hero Arts Postage Stamp die set, then a Candy Hearts cardstock panel to fit behind the Kraft postage panel.

To put it all together, I mounted the Kraft postage panel on top of the Candy Hearts one. The patterned paper was the next layer. The vintage-y panel I just created was glued to the smaller Kraft panel and a foam backing was added, then the whole thing was mounted on top of the patterned paper. The butterflies were arranged and mounted with foam squares.

For the sentiment, I used a strip of sturdy vellum paper and deckled the edges with a pair of decorative scissors. The sentiment was from the Papertrey Ink Just Sentiments: Tagged stamp set (one of my favorites). It was stamped onto the vellum strip using Versamark ink, then gold heat embossed.

The strip was added to the front, then the whole shebang (all the layers together) was mounted onto a white cardstock card base. A few enamel dots were added at the last minute for the final embellishment! ♥

Goodies Used: