One stamp, three cards!

Hi guys!

Erica on the Butterfly Reflections Ink blog today and I've got two cards for you here. You might have come here from my blog CaCaCraft By Erica, where I have another card too. All three of today's cards are done with WPlus9's stamp set called Christmas Rose Bouquet. Here is a little sneak peek of the card on my blog in case you haven't seen it.

I've done my usual thing of making two different looking cards using the same supplies. Both the images are stamped with black Memento ink and then again with VersaMark for good measure on Strathmore Bristol Vellum water colour card stock. A good sprinkling of clear embossing powder and a swish of my heat gun later, they were ready to colour.

Earlier this year I got a 240 dot Daniel Smith water colour chart with the idea that I'd be able to pick a few of each colour family once I knew what they looked like. I told my husband my plan and promised to not go nuts with buying colours. We then looked at each other and laughed and laughed, lol! I'm not exactly known for being able to restrict myself to 'just a few' after all. But have a look at this photo from my Instagram feed and tell me you'd be able to pick say five or six only.

Anyway, I drew up a colour chart on a big piece of Canson watercolour card stock and set about to swatch each and every one of the colours. It took me four days to finish it but oh boy, was it worth it! It's pretty enough to look at as it is, don't you agree?

On the first day of swatching I may have gotten a bit carried away and started colouring one of my images as I was crushing pretty hard on the yellows. Oh, they are so dreamy! Well, like I said, I did get a bit carried away and dove headfirst in. I do have a tendency to do that... Patience isn't my strong suit at all.

I only meant for this to be a test piece actually, but I liked where it went and kept working on it. The green was a stroke of luck pick as I just randomly chose one and used it for the leaves. To add shading to the flower petals I randomly picked some purple-fuchsia colour and dabbed onto the largest flower image. On the smaller flowers I picked other colours at random too, I was in a 'let's just go for it'-mood! It all, apart from the one loose flower, came out pretty well I think.

After it was dry, I used the coordinating diecut and cut all the images out. I do find that things tend to look a bit different once they are diecut, so even if you aren't 100% happy with your colouring, don't toss anything until you have cut them all out. You just never know how things are going to turn out until all is said and done.

For the background for this first card, I decided to use a Sunray stencil and some white Ranger ink texture paste. As I wanted to add some colour to the paste I dabbed a bit of of it on an acetate sheet and made a small well in it. I sprayed a little bit of Altenew Metallic Shimmer Ink spray in Forest Glade into the well and mixed it in to dye the paste. I took care to not over-mix it as I wanted it to be still showing some white in some places, and more vivid green in others. Using my little spatula, I spread the paste over the stencil BUT I didn't go all the way out on the panel. Well, in some places I did but not all the way around. The effect I was after was somewhere between actual sun shine and leaves... it's slightly difficult to put into words (that make sense) what my vision is inside my head. If this 'explanation' confuses you, I'm sorry!

While the texture paste was drying I started working on my sentiment, which I wanted to keep simple and not too distracting from everything else that was already going on. A simple 'hello' was just the ticket. This one is from another WPlus9 set, Kind Soul. It's heat embossed in white on dark grey card stock and added to the background using a very thin foam tape, to raise it up just a little bit.

The flower bouquet and the extra leaves are all added with slightly thicker foam tape. If you can believe it, I managed to resist the temptation to add a few sequins! *shocking crafty twist deserving of a dramatic gasp or two*

My second card started out like the first one: Stamped with black ink, VersaMark on top and clear embossing powder and more Daniel Smith watercolours. This time I had more of my colour swatch ready for better reference so willy-nilly decisions were not made. (to check out my Instagram where the full swatch as well as progress photos are posted, click this link) Once all coloured in and dry, I cut out all the images with the coordinating diecut and set aside.

To create my background, I cut out an A2 card sized piece of water colour card stock and sprayed it with the Altenew Metallic Shimmer ink spray in Forest Glade. Whilst this was drying I cut out the word ‘Celebrate’ in black card stock using the Neat & Tangled Celebrate diecut. To save myself a big glue mess I tried out the StickIt sticky film. This is great stuff for those fiddly little bits! You simply stick the film to the back of your card stock, run it through your die cutting machine as usual, peel off the back and stick it down on your project! Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. 

When my background piece was dry I decided to add more interest to it by running it through my die cutting machine with the Striped Leaf Cover die from Altenew. Gently lifting the piece up I managed to not loose a single little puzzle piece, yay! This piece I adhered directly to my card base with wide double sided tape covering the whole thing and pressing down firmly to make sure all of the pieces were attached. 

Using foam tape (what else??) I added my flower bouquet along the bottom of the card after I decided to go for a horizontal card for this one. The urge to add sequins to it was strong, like really strong!, but I am trying very hard to use different styles and looks. I do think it would look lovely with a few sparkly sequins on it though. Maybe I will go back and add a few later if the temptation gets too much to say no to. 

As an affiliate of Altenew and Neat & Tangled, I have used affiliate links on items that are NOT available in the Butterfly Reflections Ink shop. That means that I get a small commission, at no extra cost to you, if you click on one of these and end up buying something directly from Altenew and Neat & Tangled. Thank you in advance if you do this, I really appreciate it! All other links go to the Butterfly Reflections Ink shop of course. 

That's it from me for today but I will be back next week with another project. Probably a super-soppy Valentine's Day card or two. 

Happy crafting and thanks for stopping by today! 

Erica