Saturday, March 3, 2012

Butterfly Swirls

Don't you just love the pre-made flourishes out in the paper crafting world. I surely do. The pearl and rhinestone flourishes were simply more money than I wanted to spend on just one item, though. Then I found out that Bazzill had these really neat flourish templates. Only paying once for flourishes sounded good to me.

I purchased 2 sets, the Fantasy Flourishes and Mystical Flourishes. The description says that they are to be used with self adhesive pearls and rhinestone, but I prefer to use non-adhesive ones as they seem to stay better on paper.

One of the great things about having these templates is that you can use the whole flourish or just part of it. For this card I used 2 parts of the Mystical Flourishes. What I decided to do is place the template where I wanted the swirl and add a pencil dot in the center of each hole. Remove the template and add my pearls.
The pattern paper I used was too pretty to cut, so I ended up making the card 8 x 5"! Not sure where I will find an envelope this big, but oh well, tee he he. The pattern paper did look a bit plain to me, just too much white space. The paper was so big though, that I could not find an embossing template big enough to work. I ended up using a SU texture plate instead. It did make a gentle impression on the paper, making it look less plain.
The images I chose are from Hero Arts Antique Flowers and Butterflies Dies Cut Set. I went back and forth on whether to go around the edges with a light grey (C01 or C02 copic) and decided to do so. I ran out of time that day so it had to wait. Of course the next day I forgot, lol. Next time I will have to try it to see which way looks best.
The paper still looked a bit plain so I searched my images for something to stamp on it. I found the unused little saying from the Angel Company that I bought a couple of years ago. It is funny that they don't all start with a capital letter, but oh well...I thought they went together well anyway.
I know it is really hard to tell that I colored the dogwood flowers, but I did. They are a very light brown with darker brown shadowing and an even darker brown outside petal center. And, grrr...what I difficult time I had coloring it. First I used Momento ink and it smudged horribly so I tossed that one. For the next one I used Staz-on and that still smudged. I was like..."what's the deal with this!!!"

What I ended up doing was just kind of dotting the colors and not blending them at all. So strange, I have never had this kind of smudging before. The butterflies did not smudge at all. I was even using the same paper I use all the time...hmmmm.
The inside was left quite plain except for the gentle flourishes from the SU template. It was nice to spend some time in the craft room as it seems time has been taken up with to many other things. I have 3 different projects in my mind that I am dying to do. Again, the choice is cleaning or crafting...guess what I am going to do, bwaa ha ha.

Hugs

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hello my friend!! WOW!! What a gorgeous creation!! Love the colors and design elements here!! Hope you enjoy your weekend! HUGS