Butterfly Challenge 79

There is a new challenge for the month over on the Butterfly Blog and they are asking for 'Layers and/or Cream'.  It so happened that I was playing around with ideas this morning for using some cream pearl and coppery pearl card with embossing folders  so when I spotted this theme I immediately decided that I'd add a butterfly into the mix.  I used two different embossing folders one of which was a magazine freebie and also some dies which happen to match the shape in the centre.  I just needed to die cut and emboss a butterfly, add a sentiment and that's it - seven layers!  Do pop over to take a look at the ideas for butterflies and layers - some lovely inspiration as always.

Embossing Folders - base layer Creative Expressions (I think)
Cream Square - free embossing folder with a magazine
Shaped square layers - Crafter's Companion dies
Butterfly - Spellbinders die and tiny punched one using X-cut punch
Sentiment - printed on computer punched with Stampin' Up punches
Card - Centura Pearl from Crafter's Companion

Distress Oxide Ink

I spotted an interesting technique for stamping with the Distress Oxide ink pads and decided to have a go using some three-step clear stamps.  I wasn't sure how (or even if) it was going to work so I started small with a single flower head, a stem and a couple of leaves and because of all the wetting required I used heavy watercolour paper.  The first stage was to choose the colours going from light to dark, stamping the base layer of the flower with the lightest, spritzing with water to let the ink bleed a little before drying with a heat gun.  The same layer was then stamped over the top with the second colour, spritzed and dried again.  Next came the second layer of the flower, again with the medium shade, again spritzed and dried - followed again with the second layer stamp again but this time with the darkest colour, spritzed and dried with a final coloured stamping without spritzing - phew!!  The final thing was to stamp the outline of the flower with black ink, masked the flower and stamped the stem.  I then repeated the multi stamping, spritzing and drying with the leaves - hopefully you are still with me here.

I was pleased with the result so die cut the piece, layered it up and added some toning elements for the finished card.  This is a technique which I will be repeating with other multi-layer stamps and maybe I'll get beyond a single flower - a bit time consuming but worth it I thought for something a bit different.

Distress Oxide Colours - Fossilised Amber, Spiced Marmalade, Fired Brick
Stamp - from Penned and Painted by Stampin' Up
Die Cut Border - Sue Wilson die
Circles - Spellbinders and Tattered lace dies

Snippets Turned into More Snippets!

It is time for the fortnightly visit to the Pixie Snippets Playground again and this time I've actually gathered together some snippets and cut them into even smaller snippets!!  You might have guessed by now that I'm very fond of using the Pixie Powders for backgrounds and usually work on fairly large pieces of watercolour paper which I cut down as required until pretty well every scrap is used.The diagonal die was used to cut a purple layer and I then used the interior part to cut a piece of the 'pixied' paper, carefully saving all the little strips, chevrons and triangles.  The purple piece was put onto a background before popping all the coloured bits into the spaces - some would say I'm mad to fiddle with this I'm sure!!  The sentiment was stamped onto yet another snippet of the background paper and cut along with a purple layer using banner dies.  I'm also trying to use up the tail ends of lots of 6" paper pads and luckily this piece was just the right colour.  Finally a layered flower was die cut and apart from some really tiny pieces I've used all the Pixie paper with these colours.  Time for another sprinkling/spritzing session I think!

Do take a look to see what Di has made to inspire us and as usual she has given several tips on the best way to put the card elements together for a good result.

Main Die - Diagonal Chevron from Spellbinders
Banners - Sue Wilson dies
Flower - Sizzix die and Stampin' Up flower punches