Monthly Archives: March 2016

Dahlia Thinking of You Card

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Okay, I’ll admit it: I have a new obsession. I have fallen completely head over heels for Derwent’s Inktense pencils. They’re a water soluble paint type pencil set that make watercoloring my new favorite thing. I don’t own any standard watercolors and I only have one other set of watercolor pencils. There’s a reason for this–I can’t draw. The fancy coloring and shading that some crafters pull off with Copic markers baffles me. This is a talent I simply don’t possess (and I’m a little jealous). I would normally shy away from anything that would expose this weakness, but once I watched a few YouTube videos on them, I was so taken by their bold hues that I just had to try them for myself.

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Now I’ve told you that I don’t draw and if you’re like me, you’ll depend on your stamps and stencils to outline your images. When I’m working with any watercolor technique, I use Staz On ink or any other brand that won’t run when I start working with water. I chose a recently acquired Heartfelt Creations stamp set for my image on this card and then selected what I thought might be an appropriately vivid color for my flower.Studio_20160319_201821

Boy was it ever. After taping my cardstock to my craft sheet with washi tape, I used my Inktense pencil to color in my flower where I wanted the shades to be darkest. I thought the bases and tips of the petals might look nice and left the petals plain white in the middle. Here comes the magic. With a detail waterbrush, I blended the color from base to tip on each petal for my highlights. No seriously–that’s it. I was thrilled with how easily the pencil blended using water alone. It blended with so few strokes and so little water that I didn’t have to use watercolor paper.

While my flower dried, I stamped the image a second time on some masking tape and cut the image out to use as a mask. I placed it over my colored image (once dry) and stamped the flourishes and leaves with Staz On Jet Black ink. I left the mask in place and used Tumbled Glass Distress Ink to color in my background. After coloring in my leaves, I thought the card front could benefit from a border to balance out the color. I took the same colored pencil from the flower to the border of a piece of cardstock and blended them with my waterbrush so that intensity would match.

The addition of a Heartfelt Creations sentiment and a little sparkle on the petal tips with my Wink of Stella glitter pen finished a card to send to someone on your mind.

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If you’re interested in any of the products I used, I’ve listed them here:

  • Derwent Intense Pencils
  • Tim Holtz Distress Ink – Tumbled Glass
  • Heartfelt Creations – Dhalia
  • Heartfelt Creations – Sentiment
  • Wink of Stella Glitter Pen – Clear Glitter

If you think this handmade card is perfect for someone you know, you can find it here.

If you’d like to see any of my other products or you’d like to request a custom order, please send me a message or visit Aluminum Butterfly on Etsy.

 

Muted Rose Happy Mother’s Day Card

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I thought I’d take a break from the organizational series I’ve been posting most recently and talk about one of my favorite aspects of running this little company: the art. As much as I love organization, my first love will always be creating. I would like (if you’ll permit me) to start blogging about the designs, techniques, and special details of the pieces I create from time to time. When your storefront is online, customers may miss out on the story and process behind a piece and I’d like to remedy that here.

I’ve been experimenting with a lot of different techniques lately and I’ll have to link to some of the fun cards I’ve created with them later, but for this Mother’s Day card, I figured that I’d get back to some of the embellishments that are nearest and dearest to my heart.

If you’ve read my blog post on Die Organization, you know that I absolutely adore them. I think that some of the designs out there are breathtakingly captivating if used correctly and I attempt to do so from time to time. For this card, I selected the Spellbinders Nestabilities Four dies and relatively new one from Spellbinders and Becca Feeken of Amazing Paper Grace to give my design its basic shape.

For my color scheme, I wanted something that was a departure from my typically preferred bold blue and purple hues. I’m trying to use some of my neglected 12×12 paper collections, so I selected a set with some shabby pink, peach, and brown tones. At first, I combined the patterned papers with an unaltered white die cut, but it just seemed too white. The addition of a few colors of Distress Ink later, my background die cut matched the muted tones of the papers I’d chosen.

Next, I sized the Nestabilites for my Happy Mother’s Day stamp and cut two shapes in white and peach. I added Distress Ink to these pieces as well. Now, I’ll admit that when I’m die cutting a for a sentiment, I tend to stamp the sentiment FIRST and then cut it out. Its TONS easier to make sure that the image is centered and stamped completely this way.MR3

After placing all of the pieces together, it felt like I was still missing a color, so I added the piece of antique gold ribbon from the Paper Source behind my sentiment to pull it together a little better. I thought some dimension might be appealing, so I stuck foam adhesive behind my sentiment blocks and used a permanent adhesive runner to secure all of my layers in place.

Lastly I misted some of my roses  with a delicate gold and took a few ink daubers to the rosebuds before arranging them to the left of the sentiment. A few pearls later…voila, a card that will certainly make Mom smile.MR7

If you’re interested in any of the products I used, I’ve listed them here:

  • Tim Holtz Distress Ink – Tattered Rose
  • Tim Holtz Distress Ink – Vintage Photo
  • Tim Holtz Distress Ink – Antique Linen
  • Tim Holtz Distress Ink – Spun Sugar
  • Recollections Pearl Embellishments
  • Paper Source Satin Ribbon – Antique Gold
  • Spellbinders Nestabilities – Labels Four
  • Spellbinders Amazing Paper Grace Dies – Cascading Grace
  • DCWV 12×12 Paper Stack – Garden Tea Party
  • Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist- Gold
  • Tsukineko Brilliance Ink Pad – Pearlescent Beige

If you think this handmade card is perfect for someone you know, you can find it here.

If you’d like to see any of my other products or you’d like to request a custom order, please send me a message or visit Aluminum Butterfly on Etsy.