Wednesday, March 28, 2012

What Butterfly? Tutorial

Good morning! In an effort to come up with something really creative with my Wild Flowers set for you today, I discovered another really fun way you can use those butterfly images in the set: make big, showy leaves for the flowers! Leaf clusters are already included in the set, but these have a different shape and size and the detail inside the wings adds a special touch, and so simple to do.
Here I inked up the larger butterfly with a Memento Pear Tart marker and then added a few streaks to the center with Memento Bamboo Leaves marker and stamped.

Cut out. Snip each butterfly into four separate leaves, or two V shaped clusters. Slip under your flower and arrange as desired. Doesn't this double blossom look terrific?
The flowers are stamped four times with Memento Angel Pink and cut out. Stamp the separate dotted stamp into the centers inked with Memento Tangelo. Curl edges with fingers and mount one on top of the other with pop dots. I added a bit of Crystal Lacquer to the centers and sprinkled on bit of Doodlebug orange glitter before it dried.
Finally, Splendid Circles are definitely one of my favorites of the new Spellbinders die sets, can you believe all that pizzazz and detail you get from just one die cut?? I layered a Black Onyx Classic Circle behind it to make the details inside pop more. Pure Luxury White base is embossed with Cuttlebug Leafy Branch folder.

Hope you enjoyed this simple tutorial! So excited to have all these new "leaves", more stamps, yeah! You'll never look at those butterflies the same again! :) Readers often ask me how I come up with out of the box ideas like this, and truly I often don't see them when I'm designing the set at all. It's only after I am stare at the piece of rubber and just start seeing shapes rather than the whole. Try it, you might be surprised and delighted with what you find! ;)

PS See that linen-looking mat under my work? It's from Scor-pal and I love this Stay Put Craft Mat! Will come back with a post all about it, but it is so terrific for my work surface as well as staging photos for my blog, LOVE!!

11 comments:

  1. How clever! Beautiful card Melanie-thanks for the inspiration!

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  2. FABuLOUS!!!! Thanks for sharing this idea!!

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  3. this is awesome!!! Thanks for sharing
    Rhea

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  4. How clever!! The wings really look like leaves ;) It's an Amazing card!! {{hugs}}

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  5. how cool is that? now I'll be looking at butterflies in a whole new way :)

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  6. I love this idea. And, your upraised flowers with the butterfly leaves is awesome. Thanks for the inspiration again! Bless you.

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  7. What a great idea! Thanks for the information!

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  8. Love those leaves/butterflies, what a nice multitasking stamp! ;-) Gorgeous <3

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  9. wow, this is beautiful. Love how you made the leaves with the butterfly. Your so creative. :)

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