It seems ages since I last made something using the Butterfly Gala Stamp Set. I suppose I have been a little distracted by the Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalogue, but that’s really no excuse. Today I saw this week’s Just Add Ink and Global Design Project challenges and Butterfly Gala immediately flew to mind. So I simply sat down and started to create.

OPEN SPACE

I wanted the butterfly panel to be the focal point so opted for a very plain background. I began with a card base of Thick Whisper White Card and used Early Espresso ink to stamp the “birthday wishes” sentiment from the Varies Vases Stamp Set in the bottom right corner.

Next I cut a 3/8″ piece of So Saffron vellum from the Perennial Essence 12″ x 12″ Vellum Cardstock pack. Then using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) I attached the vellum to the card front just where the panel would cover it.

FLOWER FRAME

If I was having butterflies I needed flowers to attract them and for that I chose the Magnolia Lane Designer Series Paper (DSP). I chose one of the lighter designs and used liquid glue to fix it to some Whisper White Card. Then I cut it out using the #C4 Stitched Rectangle Die.

Next I placed the #C4 die onto a piece of Crumb Cake Card and nested the #C3 die inside it. Now when I cut this out I had a rectangle frame with two lines of stitching. I set aside the piece cut from the centre to use on a future project.

IDENTIFYING MY DIES – Within the 13 piece Stitched Rectangles Dies there is one that is almost square and I call that A. Then there is a set of 4 dies that nest together and I call that Group B. The final 8 dies that nest together I call Group C. Then as always I number the dies counting from the smallest up.

To complete the floral panel I used liquid glue to attach the frame to the front of the strengthened DSP. Then I added it to the card base using Stampin’ Dimensionals.

BUTTERFLY TIME

All that was left was the butterfly embellishment.

From the four pairs of butterflies in the Butterfly Gala Stamp Set I chose the one with the fairly plain wings. Then I used Early Espresso ink to stamp the pair twice onto Petal Pink vellum from the Perennial Essence Vellum Cardstock.

Ink takes a while to dry on vellum so to speed things up I used my Heat Tool on 1 (low) to speed up the process. Once the ink was dry I punched out the butterflies using the coordinating Butterfly Duet Punch.

I like to attach my butterflies just down the centre. I began by folding the wings either side of the body so that I could then add a line of liquid glue between the creases. Then I attached the large butterfly to the bottom left corner of the framed panel. The two smaller butterflies were added either side of the larger one in the same way.

Of course that still left a large butterfly. I used liquid glue to fix a layer of Whisper White card inside the card base. Then I glued the final vellum butterfly in the centre near the top. Obviously the butterfly will be flattened when the card is closed and mailed, but I suspect that it will bounce back a little when opened. Only time will tell.

Now all I had to do was create a coordinating envelope but attaching a vellum butterfly wasn’t practical. So instead I inked up just the small butterfly from the pair on the stamp, then covered the larger one with sellotape. Now I could safely stamp the small butterfly in the centre of the flap of a Whisper White Medium Envelope to complete my project.

INSPIRATION

I love how this project turned out. It’s really elegant with the eye drawn to the focal point as I’d planned. So what about you? Do you like using challenges to inspire your creations?

PRODUCT LIST

UPDATE 2020: The following products have retired and are no longer available from Stampin’ Up!

• Magnolia Lane 12″ x 12″ Designer Series Paper
• Perennial Essence 12″ x 12″ Vellum Cardstock
• Varied Vases Stamp Set