Butterfly Happy Birthday

My Favorite Things' Summer School Session #1 is in full swing this week! Lesson 1 was on using white space as a design element. I decided to make a (much-needed) birthday card, using an MFT "Flutter of Butterflies - Solid" die & their "Big Birthday Sentiments" stamp set.

I began by dry embossing a piece of Strathmore Smooth Bristol paper with the "Abstract" stencil, also by My Favorite Things (but apparently discontinued). After running it through my die cutting machine, I kept the stencil in place on the paper, and inked over it with Squeezed Lemonade Distress ink, letting it fade to white as it got to the top of the card panel.

I die cut a butterfly & its coordinating body from a scrap of bristol paper. I wet the wings with clean water, and dropped in Tumbled Glass Distress ink in the center. I moved the ink around with a paintbrush, to get it to be present, but still light and soft-looking. I smooshed Hickory Smoke Distress ink onto the body to color it, then glued it to the main butterfly piece.

For the greeting, I used Wow White Pearl embossing powder. After heat embossing it onto a strip of bristol, I inked over the whole strip with Dried Marigold Distress ink. I wanted to keep the color soft, to go with the rest of the design, but still have the heat-embossed greeting show up.

I matted my panel with a piece of light teal cardstock, that kind of matched the Tumbled Glass ink I'd used on the butterfly. I adhered the greeting strip, and glued the butterfly over that, so its wings kind of "hugged" the end of the greeting. Finally, I adhered the card front to a white A2-size card base.