Tag Archives: butterfly

LIM DT: Anything Goes (#481)

Posted on by
2

Another ‘anything goes’ theme at the Less is More clean and simple challenge blog. This time it doesn’t have to be a one-layer card which leaves a little leeway for embellishments and matting to be added if needed. Remember that clean and simple requires a large amount of white space around your chosen elements. I’ve elected to add a little dimension to my card by lifting up the butterfly wings. I also added a little star dust to the wings which doesn’t completely show up in the pic. Here’s my finished inspiration piece for the challenge:

anything goes card featuring 'hello' sentiment and coloured butterfly on grey text background

Continue reading →

Art Journal Page: Want to Fly

Posted on by
Reply

Want to flyIn my last art journaling post, I wrote about knowing when a page is finished. This time around I went a step too far and completely spoiled the layout. See the staining through the gesso middle left and bottom right? That’s archival ink soaking through several layers of gesso. I thought once the butterflies were on, and the gesso painted around them that I would stamp more butterflies over the top. What a mistake to make…

Continue reading →

Background Check: Day 6

Posted on by
Reply

BC_participant

It’s the final day over at the Background Check class, aside from the wrap up day. It’s another design break to allow us to make cards using the background techniques we’ve learnt over the previous two days. I’ve snuck into the studio and made my Day 5 backgrounds into cards:

For these cards, they’ve only needed the addition of a little sparkle to accentuate elements on the background, with the sentiments done on my trusty Dymo machine. Again, that’s not been out for a while, and it was the letter press (get it?) technique that prompted its use. It’s been a great course, well worth the sign up fee – if only to have had the impetus to use some loved, but forgotten, techniques and refill my card drawer!

 

Continue reading →

What I did at the weekend…

Posted on by
1

IMG_5893_wThis gorgeous bird started out as a £1 plain brass charm at the start of Saturday morning. It’s only 7x5cm in size, but had the dimples ready for the cloisonné effect additions of Stickles Glue (Stardust, Peacock & Lagoon), Juniper Liquid Pearls and some Glossy Accents. So by the end of Sunday, this was the final result. I need to make sure I get to the rest of them, so I’m staying quiet as to where I found it!

I also completed two more art journal pages – another for my Carabelle Studio stamps demo, and the second featuring new stamps from Tim Holtz. This page had several layers of paint and distress stains to start, and then I augmented it with the ‘Pretty Like A Flower’ stamp, with distress markers. It’s the first time I’ve used PanPastels to tone down a background, fixing with a quick hairspray. Which by the way causes archival ink to swim about, so the gesso layer got thicker to cover that learning moment…

IMG_5891_w

Iridescent watercolours really make the embossed butterfly zing – but beware when drying the previous page – the embossing remelts and distresses both the artist and the facing page somewhat!
IMG_5880_w

 

Beauty in Simplicity: art journal page

Posted on by
1

IMG_5878_wNow that I’ve finished my latest quilt, it’s back to sample making showing off the Carabelle Studio stamps I will be playing with demonstrating at Daisy’s Jewels and Crafts on Saturday 11th April (10am – 4pm). Featured today are ‘Envolée de Papillons’, ‘Background Papillons’, ‘Papillion Grunge’, Collage Texte et Négatif’ and the XXL size ‘Négatif et Papillons’.

The page features lots and lots of layers of distress inks, acrylics, scraped gesso, and Wendy Vecchi Archival Inks, as well as Tim Holtz life quotes and tissue tape.

 

WOW! Butterflies in flight

Posted on by
3

I spent the evening yesterday slaving over a hot oven… though 160 C is probably a moderate oven thinking about it. I was baking butterflies – not as cruel as it sounds, as they were made from embossing powder. I spent more time tying the darn things together than making them, but judge for yourself whether the results were worth it:

Continue reading →