Butterflies and Texture!

Hi everybody! I'm glad you're here because I had so much fun making the card that I'm sharing with you today. Earlier this week Hero Arts had a stunning new release and it was all about those butterflies! The add-ons are equally fabulous so today I'm sharing two of my favorite add-ons with you: the Beautiful Butterflies Bundle and the Background Texture Strips. 

Now, I'm the kind of crafter who always has colorful scraps of past projects lying around. I noticed I had a piece of white cardstock that I had been using to get some ink off of my blending brushes and it was such a pretty color combination that I decided to use the scrap. It also had some random stamping using the the script stamp from the Background Texture Strips so it was truly meant to be used for this card.

I cut the paper down to A2 size and finished ink blending it in Ultra Pink, Lemon Yellow, and, Summer Sky. I wanted to add a little more visual texture to the background so I splattered it with rubbing alcohol to create some lighter spots and I also sprayed it with White Iridescent Shimmer Spray. I wanted to some more "shadow" to the background so I used the Luggage Tag Alphabet Frame Cuts (still connected) to create a stencil. I gently ink-blended the negative portion of the die cut using Granite Core ink and focusing on the outer edges of the card face. This left me with a soft, beautiful background that had a lot of visual texture...

But, If you know me, you know that I like texture that I can touch! So I grabbed the Background Texture Strips stamp set and I decided to use the stamp that looks like tiny newspaper print (remember there was already some of the scripty stamp on the background from a previous project). I used the newspaper print stamp (on a stamping block) with Moonstone Pigment ink around the edges of the card-face and then I heat embossed it in clear so that it was shiny and raised. Next, I used the Star Cluster Stencil and my Pearl Hero Paste to add some stars to the background. Note that this has a gorgeous pearlescent finish. The pearlescent finish faded into the background shimmer and I had really wanted more contrast so the stars popped off the background. In the end I decided to color all of the paste with a white gel pen to get the contrast I wanted (hot tip: use the regular Hero Paste for more contrast).

To create a focal point for my card I heat embossed a butterfly from the Beautiful Butterflies set in White Embossing Powder on Pitch Black Cardstock. I die cut it with the coordinating dies and adhered it with foam tape. My sentiment is from the Sending Love Mail stamp set and I heat embossed it on Charcoal cardstock using Onyx Pigment ink and Clear Embossing Powder. The final touch was to add some Pewter Hero Pearls to the background.

Alright, that's it for today! I hope you all have a great day and I will see you back here soon!

Maria

#TGIFC145 - Color Challenge

Hey everybody and welcome back to another midnight blog post! Well, it's midnight here in California anyways and it's time for another TGIF Challenge! This week we've got a color challenge for you and the colors are: Blushing Bride, Sweet Sugarplum and Powder Pink! These are all colors that I never use so the color combo is outside of my normal range. No matter! I had fun with it anyhow! I used the new SAB set called Beautiful Peacock and stamped the tail feathers (two different stamps) in Sweet Sugarplum and Blushing Bride. I stamped off every time so that the images would be lighter. Then I used the Glitter Embossing Paste and added some diamond shaped texture to my background. You just can't tell how pretty and shimmery it is in the photo. 

Next I layered some shredded ribbon, silver glimmer paper, die cuts, a vellum flag, silver metallic thread and my sentiment. I topped the card off with some rhinestones for a little extra razzle dazzle.

Oh! I almost forgot to tell you about the sentiment. People are always telling me how they just cut their stamps apart so they can do "this," or, "that" with them. My heart cries out in pain every time I hear one of these stories. I'm like, "You cut your stamps? You just cut them right up? With scissors?" Horrifying. You've probably already guessed by now that I've joined the dark side- I cut up two sentiments from the Happy Wishes stamp set in order to create an "I love you" sentiment. I even had to cut off an extra piece and I'm not sure if they'll ever go back together properly again... but, my card says, "I love you," and that's all I cared about in the moment. 

So, what do you think of this color combo? Have you used it before? Want to give it a shot? Join us for the fun over at this week's TGIF Challenges for #TGIFC145. If you don't want to participate but want to see some more color inspiration head on over to check out what the rest of the design team has come up with!

That is all I've got for today folks. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have an amazing weekend!

Maria.

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Email: mariawillis@hotmail.com

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