Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge
Butterfly Garden
Good day, fellow crafters. After a delightful holiday weekend filled with festivities and well-deserved relaxation, I am thrilled to announce my return to sharing my card creations with all of you. This particular card is my submission for the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge as well as a new blog to me the Flower Challenge, which you can find here. I believe it holds a lot of charm, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did crafting it.
To create this card’s background I decided to use a 3D embossing folder that I haven’t used before from my stash. This one is from Spellbinders and is called Bamboo Trellis. It’s subtle Asian-inspired design caught my attention, and I began envisioning other potential applications for it in future projects. Using a light lavender cardstock, I lightly misted the back before carefully positioning it inside the embossing folder. With a couple of passes through my embossing machine, the image gained crisp definition, thanks to the moisture in the cardstock that allowed it to bend without breaking under the applied pressure. Once that step was complete I took it from the embossing folder and set it aside to dry fully.
To create the midground I started with a white cardstock, to which I stamped the Cherry Blossom’s on a branch from the Pink & Main Cherry Blossom stamp and die set. For the coloring I used Altenew’s inks in the colors of Mountain Pine, Hunter Green, Deep Iris and Ultraviolet. To add depth and detail, I used Gina K's pigment ink in Chocolate Truffle for the branch. My aim was to achieve a subtle and pale look for the flowers, and this combination of inks successfully delivered the desired effect.
For the foreground’s beautiful butterfly, I used some black cardstock and the Tim Holtz Thinlits Butterfly die set. I repurposed some leftover alcohol ink on vellum from a previous project, giving it a captivating stained glass effect when mounted behind the silhouette. The end result left me absolutely enchanted. For a detailed view, please take a moment to explore the close-up picture in the gallery below.
Before final assembly, the last step was to craft the sentiment. For this task, I turned once again to the Pink & Main Cherry Blossom set, combining it with the Gina K Chocolate Truffle ink and lavender cardstock and utilized a sentiment-sized die from my collection.
Assembly was done by first trimming the background and the Kraft colored mat to their final dimensions and then adhering them to a pre-cut white card base. I then surface mounted the midground and the butterfly foregound to the card base. To add a little more dimension and to not take away anymore of the appeal of the embossing I elevated the sentiment up on pop dots.
