Learn about Butterflies Day

The Day of the Month Card Club wants butterflies for "Learn About Butterflies Day".

I made a quick smooshed background with various oxide inks and then stenciled a bit of texture over it with grey ink. I stamped, watercoloured, and fussy cut the butterfly, using the colours from the image on the challenge thread. I glued the butterfly body to the background and popped the wings up with foam tape. The background is mounted on the card base with fun foam.

 

Day of the Month Card Club "Learn about Butterflies Day" 

Supplies:
Stamps - Penny Black butterfly, SU sentiment
Ink - various Distress Oxide inks, Memento London Fog, Archival Jet Black
Paper - mixed media and white cs
Size - A2
Accessories - TCW Tile Texture stencil, watercolour paints, fun foam, foam tape

An Inspired Window with a Wreath

I was looking at the SCS Inspiration Challenge on the weekend and saw an image that immediately inspired this card:

The inspiration was from a Pinterest page for a company called HomeBNC.  Here's the photo that inspired me:

Here are the steps for creating my card:
 

I took a piece of wood grain cs and lightly rubbed Frayed Burlap Distress ink over it to make the wood grain show up more.

I die cut the window twice and glued them together for more dimension and painted patches of Hickory Smoke Distress ink on the top one to give it a more rustic aged look.

I created the wreath by die cutting a thin circle and punch many pine branches with the old Martha Stewart punch out of various dps that were mostly green. I glued them to the circle, added it to the window, and added a few white pearl embellishments.

I finished with a vertical sentiment stamped in Hickory Smoke on a narrow strip edged with more Hickory Smoke ink.

 

As well as the SCS challenge, I'm adding it to:

52 Christmas Card Throwdown - Wood Background

 

Supplies:
Stamps - Rosie's Roadshow sentiment
Ink - Distress Frayed Burlap and Hickory Smoke
Paper - wood grain and white cs, various green dps
Size - 6.25x3.25"
Accessories - Martha Stewart pine branch punch, window die, pearl embellishments

Die Cuts and Scraps of Perfect Pearls

Never wanting to waste any beautiful bits of background, I created this card:

A while back, I made some backgrounds using the smooshing technique with Perfect Pearls.  See the third card on this post for more details.

I had just enough of the background piece used on that third card to die cut a background for the landscape / reindeer die (out of the part of it that showed the lovely shimmer) and then enough of the more solid dark area to die cut the letters for merry christmas.

The image is popped up on fun foam and the letters are painstakingly glued down one at a time!

Off to these challenges:

Jingle Belles - Use Die Cuts - I used them for the whole card.

Snippets Pixie's Playground - I used the snippets of leftover background and a snippet of white cs.

Rudolph Days - Anything Goes

NBUS Challenge - Never Before Used Stuff - I'd never used any of the dies I used on the card.

Supplies:
Paper - white cs, black watercolour paper
Size - A2
Accessories - Blue Interference Perfect Pearls, unknown reindeer / landscape die, lower case merry christmas die, fun foam

F is for Frosty Friends

Another Christmas card today:

I used one of my never-before-used Penny Black stamps. The image is watercoloured and then I added fun flock to the pompom and brim of the hat.  This one is popped up straight onto fun foam onto a kraft card base.  I kept all the colouring in kraft tones and red for the CAS Christmas challenge.

I made a second version while all the supplies were out, added in a wee bit of green, and bordered it with red cs before popping it up on fun foam:

Does the image look better with or without the red border?

Off to these challenges:

CAS Christmas

 

The Paper Players

 

Christmas Cards All Year Round - "Something that Starts with E or F" - mine is "frosty friends" 

NBUS Challenge - I used a never-before-used stamp.

 

Supplies:
Stamps - Penny Black
Ink - Versafine Onyx Black
Paper - watercolour paper, kraft and red cs
Size - A2
Accessories - watercolour paints, fun flock, fun foam

Die Cut Printed Holly

A card for a bunch of challenges:

I created the background using the technique in this month's CAS Mix Up challenge.  Instructions can be found in this video.

I die cut the long branch of holly, then watercoloured it with different shades of Zig Watercolour markers, spritzed with water, and pressed onto watercolour paper a couple of times.  I then dried my die cut and added it as the focal image.  Stamped the sentiment (it didn't come out that well as my ink was dry), popped the panel up on fun foam on a pale green shimmer card base, and added some gemstones for berries.

Off to these challenges:

CAS Mix Up Watercolour Challenge

 

52 Christmas Card Throwdown 

 

Christmas Kickstart Challenge 

 Jingle Belles "Going Green - Holiday Foliage"

Casology

Supplies:
Stamps - A Muse sentiment
Ink - Memento Cottage Ivy
Paper - watercolour paper, pale green shimmer cs
Size - 6.25x3.5"
Accessories - Memory Box Holly Vine die, fun foam, red gemstones, Zig watercolour markers

Black and White with an Inchie

Sadly I needed to make a sympathy card for a friend whose father passed away, and the current AAA CAS Card Challenge "One Inchie and Optional Twist of Black and White" prompted an idea for it.

Very quick to make - stamped the inchie on a scrap of white cs that was already die cut into a square, stamped the flourish and sentiment on the main panel, bordered it with black, and popped the inchie up on foam tape.

  

AAA Card Challenge

Supplies:
Stamps - SU sentiment, Autumn Leaves flourish, Inkadinkado inchie
Ink - Versafine Clair Nocturne
Paper - white cs
Size - A2
Accessories - foam tape