Mixed Media Butterflies

 Happy Saturday to you. It's hard to believe, but next Saturday will be the first of May. I began working on the card I'm sharing today a few weeks ago and let time get away from me. One of the challenges I made it for closes tonight so I forced myself to focus and get her done, lol.

Let's see if I can remember how I made this... I got out a piece of 5x7" watercolor paper, Stamplorations' Shower of Flutters stencil and my Mowed Lawn, Broken China, Blueprint Sketch and Wilted Violet Distress Oxides. The stencil can also be used as a mask, but I used it as a stamp.

  

Here are the Stamplorations products I used, shown above. You can click on them to make them bigger. I have these Martha Stewart sponge daubers that are good at smooshing paint and ink onto a surface, so I used them to apply the inks in a rainbow pattern, continuing to smoosh/daub the ink onto the back of the stencil until it was liberally coated with the inks. Then I lightly misted both the stencil and my watercolor paper with water and I gingerly picked up the stencil and laid it onto the paper. I covered it with a piece of wax paper and then I used my hands to press on it to make good contact. Then I put a big heavy acrylic block over it and left it to sit for 20 minutes. I learned that from Jennifer McGuire in one of her videos and from the lady who owns Lavinia and did all those videos. Give the ink a chance to soak in before removing your stamp. I forget all the time.

I took a pic of it "under glass" and wax paper...

I trimmed my wc paper to fit my Recollections card base and then cut the Stamplorations Thinking of You sentiment die out of the wc paper and also out of some blue paper stash scrap.  Next, I glued the sentiment I'd die cut out of blue card stock scrap into the negative space on my card front in a inlaid fashion and put it in my big heavy botanical encyclopedia for an hour to let it dry good under a weight. 

I got out 3 colors of Versafine Clair (Verdant, Warm Breeze and Monarch) and stamped 3 of the butterflies from Stamplorations Trendy Butterflies set and clear-heat-embossed them. I also stamped one of each color on paper scraps, clear-heat-embossed them and fussy-cut them out.

I adhered the cut butterflies with glue dots over each matching one that I'd stamped on my card front. Voila - Paper Piecing! (Okay, yes, I know, it's barely paper piecing, thanks to the stamped antennas. I don't play over at CAS to win, that would be silly given the fabulous entries they get. I just play when I can to practice CAS and to do a little mixed media.) So, at this point, I'm like, what to do next? Nothing? Add some bling? What? I'm a kitchen sink kind of card maker and am utterly and completely tone deaf about how much is too much with CAS cards, which I am attempting here. So that is where I left it, until today, hoping the answer would come to me, lol, which it didn't, so in the end I added nothing else. 

 Which is okay because I made this to use as a flat mailable notecard, and I haven't even decorated the inside or the back for now. You know what? I'm happy letting the colors speak, lol. They remind me of Spring.

While I was stenciling, I had some leftover ink to mop up. Yum! This is what it looked like after picking up the inked stencil, and before misting it with water again to juice it up:  

and I drug and slapped 3 A2 sized pieces of mixed media card through that leftover ink:

So now I have enough card part extras from today's card to make another one:

It never ends! haha And I'm convinced if we don't "grow" more stuff then it will just replicate on its own...at night when we are sleeping... bwahaha Seems like it, huh?

Well, that was my art adventure for the week! Thanks as always for stopping by. I appreciate the visit and hope you are having a wonderful weekend, XOX.

MY CHALLENGE PLAYLIST:

1.   CAS Mix Up April Challenge: Paper Piecing -- #1/3 I hand-stamped the yellow, orange and red butterflies and also the tiny silhouetted ones. I used a stencil as a stamp to make the background.  

2.   Stamplorations Things with Wings Blog Hop and Linky Party 4/7-5/2 -- #1/7 Stamplorations products used: Shower of Flutters ARTplorations stencil, Thinking of You CUTplorations phrase die and Trendy Butteflies stamps

3.   Stamplorations April Stencil Challenge: AG with a Stencil -- #1/3 I used Shower of Flutters ARTplorations stencil 

4.   Stamplorations Never-Ending Anything Goes Challenge -- Stamplorations products used: Shower of Flutters ARTplorations stencil, Thinking of You CUTplorations phrase die and Trendy Butteflies stamps  

5.   HLS April Stencil Challenge: AG with a Stencil  -- I used Shower of Flutters ARTplorations stencil 

6.   2 Crafty Critter Crazies April Challenge #49: AG with a Critter -- #2/5  Butterflies

7.   Crafty Animals #49: AG with an Animal -- Butterflies

8.   Creative Artiste #70: AAMMG -- #1/3  My media elements: paper, stenciling, inks, embossing powder

9.   Outlawz Festive Fridays 4/16-4/29: Thinking of You Theme

10. Pearly Sparkles #61: Animals/Birds/Insects -- Butterflies

11. Try It On Tuesday: Make A Rainbow

12. 613 Avenue Create April 2021 #4: AG + Opt. In the Garden (Create a Card for Spring) -- #2/8 Option played - butterflies in the Spring garden sky :-)

13. Crafty Calendar April Challenge: Spring or Easter -- #1/3 Spring

14. Incy Wincy Designs Challenge 4/19-5/2: Spring Colors and/or Embossing -- #1/5 I used Spring pastel colors and heat embossed the 3 stamped and paper-pieced butterflies

15. Classic Design Challenge 5th Birthday April 2021 #4: AAG -- 

  

16. Allsorts Challenge Week 621: Any 3 Colors of the Rainbow -- #1/3  I used the cools: Blue, Green, Purple