Gold, Grunge, Glitz and Two Charlenes

This is my week to craft with ladies named Charlene!

On Monday, I visited a newer friend–named Charlene–at her home and helped her try out an emboss resist technique, some sponging, and some die cutting with the Butterfly Thinlits.

Then today at my place, I enjoyed a lovely day stamping with my long time best friend–and Upline– Charlene. She wanted to learn about the Bokeh Technique that I used here and while she worked on creating her watercolor backgrounds for the bokeh, I finished up my thank you cards to go out with my recent Stampin' Up! order.

Charlene achieved some great results and modelled them after my card from here but then branched out and made good use of some acetate and ribbon for a unique look! I am waiting on some pictures from her so I'll try to post those tomorrow.

Finally, my cards were finished and I was able to create the card I had been envisioning for days!
I started with a 5 x 7 Basic Black card base. I stamped my sentiment (from the now retired, See Ya Later stamp set) in the top left corner with Versamark and heat embossed with Gold Embossing Powder.

I cut a black card stock panel and stamped the fern from Butterfly Basics in Versamark, heat embossing again with the Gold Embossing Powder.

I used Dimensionals and offset this panel on another panel of Gold Foil.

I cut two of the the mid-sized butterfly from the Butterfly Thinlits, one in Basic Black and one from Gold Glimmer paper. I used the wonderful dryer sheet technique from Deb Valder to make it easy to remove the butterflies from the dies. I heat embossed the black one using Clear Embossing Powder to make it glossy.

Next, after deciding where my offset panel would go, I used Versamark to stamp some grungy flecks from Gorgeous Grunge. I also embossed these with Gold Embossing Powder. (Notice a trend here??) I then added the offset panel using Dimensionals.

I attached the black butterfly at the bottom of the offset panel using Glue Dots. The Gold Glimmer butterfly was attached to the black one using Glue Dots and the wings were bent up slightly to simulate flight.

I punched a tiny butterfly from Vellum using my Bitty Butterfly Punch and inked the edge in Versamark and then (you guessed it, right?) heat embossed it using Gold Embossing Powder. I bent up the wings and attached it with a Glue Dot near the sentiment.

The final touch for the outside of the card was to add a few rhinestones to the body of the bitty butterfly.

Since the card was black, I needed to create an inner panel to make it easier on which to write.
I cut a panel from Naturals Ivory card stock. Using Tuxedo Black Memento ink, stamped off, I stamped a few ferns at the bottom of the panel, not re-inking between stamps to give some added dimension. I also added a few flecks using black ink with Gorgeous Grunge.

I felt compelled to ink the edges loosely with Versamark and heat emboss them with Gold Embossing Powder. To complete the theme, I stamped the little butterflies–from the Perpetual Birthday Calendar stamp set–in Versamark and heat embossed them with Gold Embossing Powder.

Here are a few shots . . . it's hard to get good shots of the gold and glitter.

Details of the inside.

Lots of gold, grunge and glitz. Gotta love it!

If you love butterfly cards, be sure to check out these posts:

• Bokeh Technique and Sneak Peek From 2015 Occasions Catalog
• Butterfly Obsession
• Color Inspiration and Abundant Butterflies

What have you created with your Butterfly Basics and Butterfly Thinlits? Let me know in the comments below!

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Butterfly Obsession

In my opinion, the Butterfly Basics stamp set and the Butterfly Thinlits Dies from the 2015 Stampin' Up! Occasions Catalog are a MUST HAVE! You will be able to order them from me starting January 6.

I came home from work today, determined to try out the other butterfly thinlits. Yesterday I worked with the large swallowtail thinlit with fabulous results. Today I am equally proud of my card creation, though I did suffer some mishaps along the way!

To begin with, I used Versamark with the Something Lacy background stamp on a piece of vellum. I heat embossed it using Gold Embossing Powder.

I mounted the vellum, using strategically placed glue dots, onto a piece of Blackberry Bliss card stock.

I then used the Chalk Talk Framelits to die cut a tag from Sahara Sand card stock and proceeded to adapt it into a ribbon slide with the help of the Tag Topper Scalloped Punch. You can see a tutorial for how to do it in my Making It Sparkle post though in that tutorial, I used a book plate from the Apothecary Accents Framelits instead of a tag from the Chalk Talk Framelits.

I stamped the ribbon slide with a sentiment from the Butterfly Basics stamp set. To do this, I first inked the stamp with Versamark and then with Blackberry Bliss.

(It was at this point that my stamp pad flew apart! Making a grab for it caused me to get inky fingers which I proceeded to add to my newly stamped ribbon slider! After swabbing myself down, I cut another ribbon slider and stamped the sentiment again. I then followed a tutorial by Diana Gibbs to put my stamp pad back together again!)

My stamp pad after getting it back together!

What my hands looked like!

After stamping, I heat embossed it with Clear Embossing Powder. I inked the stamp with Versamark first because I find it helps to pick up more of the embossing powder than the other ink by itself.

I used a Sponge Dauber to ink the ribbon slider with Blackberry Bliss and then threaded Blackberry Bliss ribbon through it. I placed some Dimensionals on the back of the tag and adhered the ribbon to the back of the matte using Sticky Strip.

I used Fuse Fast to adhere the matte to a Sahara Sand card front.

This led to my second mishap . . . I got the matte on crooked! This happens to me quite frequently.

Luckily, I have a product called Un-Du in my toolbox to help me out of this type of jam. This stuff is the BEST thing you will ever buy for your own crafting endeavors. It easily allows you to separate glued papers and photos and then dries very quickly to allow you to proceed with your project. No one would ever know that you had to remove anything because there is no trace of the Un-Du left behind! Click on the picture to order it from Amazon. I buy two bottles so I always have a backup when the first bottle is empty.

Next, I used the middle size butterfly from the Butterfly Thinlits to die cut a butterfly from Blackberry Bliss card stock. I did this according to the WONDERFUL tutorial by Deb Valder where she shows you how to use dryer sheets to get even the most intricate dies to easily release. Believe me, you will be AMAZED and thankful that you watched the video tutorial!

After die cutting, I inked up half of the butterfly with Versamark and heat embossed it with Clear Embossing Powder. I repeated the process with the other half to produce a high gloss butterfly.

You can really see the high gloss shine here!

I used the butterfly stamp from Butterfly Basics to stamp with Versamark on a piece of Sahara Sand. I heat embossed it with Gold Embossing Powder and then die cut it with the matching die.

For each butterfly, I bent up the wings a little from the body. I adhered the smaller butterfly to the larger, and then the larger butterfly to the card front using glue dots.

To complete the card, I added three pearls to the body of the smaller butterfly.

Despite my mishaps, I think my card is splendid! What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.

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