Fluttering Into Spring

I just felt the need to create something with a little Spring feel about it and just kept playing around until I came up with this design. Spring is in the air today here in Michigan. Birds are singing and sun is shining. Before you know it the butterflies will be fluttering around the garden.

I just received new colors of Transparent Microfine glitter from Art Glitter and wanted to use them on this project. So here's how I started.

Supplies:

• Cupid #735 Microfine Transparent Art Glitter
• Raspberry #740 Microfine Transparent Art Glitter
• Elfin #705 Microfine Transparent Art Glitter
• Designer Dries Clear (DDC)
• Art Glitter Gold Metal Leaf
• Rose Bud Fine #623 Vintage Glass Glitter
• Sizzix Tim Holtz Alterations Butterflight On-the-Edge 
• Distress Inks Dusty Concord, Crushed Olive, Broken China, Vintage Photo & Walnut Stain
• Archival Inks in Coffee and Jet Black
• heat tool 

I began by inking my tag so the butterflies would have some background color. Then I sprinkled some water onto the inked tag and waited about 20 seconds then heat set.

I originally had intended to cut the butterflies and use disconnected from the background tag, but once the images had been cut into the tag I liked the way they look and they could be propped up a bit.

To create texture and dimension on the tag I inked the large background stamp from Papillon CMS106 from Stamper's Anonymous and folded the butterflies forward (this way, they were not stamped) then stamped the tag background. I inked several different butterfly stamps and stamped onto the butterfly images. I used Coffee Archival Ink for this part so the lines would show slightly beneath the glitter when it is applied.

Then I used my paintbrush technique to paint the DDC onto each butterfly wing - one at a time - and then sprinkled with the glitter. The DDC dries very quickly when applied in this manner so work in small areas at a time.

I alternated the glitter colors among the butterflies and used Rose Bud Fine Vintage Glass Glitter on the butterfly bodies in the center of each.

It seemed a bit flat to me when I finished so decided to add a pop of gold. I used the Gold Metal Leaf for this. I squeezed a very small amount of DDC onto my non-stick craft sheet and smudged it on my finger and then smudged it onto the tag. I pressed the Gold Metal Leaf into the smudged DDC and let it set for a minute to dry, then brushed away any loose particles.

To finish it off I added the stamped sentiment and a pretty ribbon.


Linda Neff
linda-neff.com

Visit my blog to catch a look at another Art Glitter project I worked on recently.