Big Butterfly Congrats

Happy Wednesday!  Have you missed me?  Sorry I've been AWOL the past few days...I am up to my eyeballs in end-of-year marking, exams, report cards and clean-up at school.  I can't wait for Friday at 3:00...ahhhh freedom!!
With the end of the school year come the requisite good-byes as we say farewell to various staff members who are leaving for a variety of reasons.  I am typically charged with making the cards for everyone to sign, which means I need to think BIG!  Today's project is an over-sized 5-1/2" x 8" retirement card...

Retirement card featuring the Watercolour Wings and Awesomely Artistic stamp sets with sentiment from Sassy Salutations

For this one I pulled out two of my favourite new stamp sets:  Watercolour Wings and Awesomely Artistic.  I also used the Bokeh technique to create my background.  I began by sponging  Whisper White card stock all over with Lost Lagoon, Wisteria Wonder and Mint Macaron inks.  I really like the way those three shades blend and complement each other.  Then I used Whisper White Craft ink and a template I created with various-sized circle punches to create my points of light.  Once that was completely dry, I heat embossed the floral image from the Awesomely Artistic stamp set in silver.  Such a gorgeously delicate imge!  The final touch on the background was some silver ink spatters, which are also from the Awesomely Artistic set.

I layered my Bokeh background on a piece of Lost Lagoon card stock, on which I had heat embossed, in silver, the sentiment from Sassy Salutations and embellished it with some (retired) Blackberry Bliss stitched satin ribbon.  To create the butterflies, I stamped the solid butterfly images from the Watercolour Wings stamp set in Wisteria Wonder ink and then stamped the detail images in Blackberry Bliss.  I die-cut the stamped butterflies using the Bold Butterfly Framelits and Butterflies Thinlits.  The top layer on each butterfly is die-cut from Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer paper (on sale this week!).  I embellished each butterfly with a Vintage Faceted button (also on sale this week!) and some Silver Metallic Thread.
The background panel is a piece of Blackberry Bliss card stock that I embossed using the Elegant Dots TIEF.  The panel was larger than would fit in the folder, but I was able to carefully match the pattern so that the seam wasn't obvious.  The card base is Basic Gray card stock. 

Inside view with sentiment from the Wild About Flowers set and butterfly images from the Papillon Potpourri set.

On the inside I added Whisper White panels to allow lots of room for our staff to wish the retiree well and then added some stamped flowers in Blacknerry Bliss.  The sentiment is from the Wild About Flowers set and is heat embossed in silver.  I die cut the labels using the Lots of Labels framelits.  The butterflies, from the Papillon Potpourri set, are heat embossed in silver on vellum and then punched using the Bitty Butterfly and Elegant Butterfly punches.

Now, I was so busy yesterday I fogot to post this week's Weekly Deals!  Here they are...prices are good until Monday at midnight :)

Dazzling Diamonds Glimmer Paper Price: $6.25   Sale: $4.69	Gold 1/8" Ribbon Price: $6.25   Sale: $4.69	Lucky Stars Textured Impressions Embossing Folders Price: $9.25   Sale: $6.94
Mini Treat Bag Thinlits Dies Price: $49.00   Sale: $36.75	Pink Pirouette 1/2" Seam Binding Ribbon Price: $8.75   Sale: $6.56	Polka Dot Textured Impressions Embossing Folder Price: $9.25   Sale: $6.94
Silver Glimmer Paper Price: $6.25  Sale:  $4.69	Vintage Faceted Designer Buttons Price: $7.50   Sale: $5.63

Watercolour Wednesday

Happy hump day!  So glad this crazy week is half over...just a couple more days till the weekend!

Today I have a project I did with my team at our monthly meeting this week.  We were focusing on new products from the Annual catalogue and this make-n-take sure uses lots of them!

Thank you card featuring the Watercolour Wings stamp set.

There are so many awesome new products on this card that are fast becoming favourites of mine.  For starters, that corrugated specialty paper is the bomb!  I love it!  Fabulous texture in neutrals that go with just about anything.  You'll definitely be seeing more of that in the future.  Here, I cut a piece to 4" x 5-1/4" and then tore it on the diagonal to get my background piece.  I layered that on a piece of Crush Curry card stock and added the Tangelo Twist strip, embossed with the Honeycomb TIEF, along the right side. That is adhered to a card base made of Kraft card stock.

Now, there is a story to the butterflies.  I had planned to use the Watercolour Wings stamp set to create my butterflies, which I did, to a point.  When I opened my new stamps I discovered that rather than receiving two sheets of different stamps (which is the way it is supposed to come) I had two of the same sheet of stamps.  That meant I was working with half a set, so I had to improvise.  (Just so you know, Stampin' Up is sending me a whole new stamp set...they have awesome customer - and demonstrator - service!).  To get the solid background for the two butterflies I first die cut the solid large butterfly from scrap card stock using the Bold Butterfly Framelits and the small one using the Butterflies Thinlits.  Then, using the negative as a stencil, I sponged the two butterflies in Crushed Curry ink.  I then could stamp the various texture stamps that I had from the Watercolour Wings set in Tangelo Twist and in Versamark so I could heat emboss in gold.  Then I die-cut the two stamped images using the same dies I did to create the stencils.

I die cut the two detailed butterflies using the Butterflies Thinlits and the Bold Butterfly Framelits from gold foil sheets and adhered them over top of the stamped ones...they are a perfect fit. 

The final touch was the addition of a sentiment using one of the Expressions Natural Elements...love those!

On the inside I stamped the smaller butterfly image (that was included on the half set I had) in Crushed Curry ink full strength and then again stamped off once and twice.  I added the detail layer in Tangelo Twist ink in the same manner.  The sentiment is also from the Watercolour Wings set and is stamped in Tangelo Twist.

Inside view with sentiment from Watercolour Wings.