A host of golden butterflies

Layering stencils are the big hot trend in paper crafting at the moment and I must admit I've not dived in until this week but the new Bountiful Butterfly Stencil from Altenew really screamed "get me inky" so I grabbed one and the matching die and got my inks out to create a couple of fun cards and I have to say I'm hooked!

The stencil has 3 layers - a butterfly layer, a background layer and a detail layer.  This means you can get really creative with how you use them.  I wasn't sure how it would go so made a full 6x6 panel on white card first to see how it played out and then I could decide how to turn it into a card after.

I started with the butterfly layer and used 3 shades of yellow and orange oxides (Squeezed Lemonade, Fossilied Amber and Spiced Marmelade) to ink blend my butterflies.  To add interest to the background layer I opted for a light to dark, top to bottom blend - again 3 shades of oxides (Salvaged Patina, Peacock Feathers and Prize Ribbon).   When you line the two stencils up, the background is slightly larger than the butterfly layer so preserves a white border around each butterfly which really makes them pop off the background.  I then used the detail stencil and used that in this case just to add antenna in black.

I decided to just trim the panel to be a full card front and I didn't want to cover up much of the fun pattern with a sentiment so opted for a tiny one use Itty Bitty Basics Sentiments Stamp and Matching Die, embossing the sentiment in white onto navy card.

There is a matching die for the butterfly stencil too, so I thought I'd make a single flying butterfly with that too.   I inked up another butterfly in the same way but added some darker details with the 3rd layer stencil to the wings.   Cut with the die and then I used scissors to cut between the wings so I could get some realistic dimension but adding different heights of foam tape behind on the finished card.

To give him something to land on, I opted for a simple small square of embossed detail using the Mega Succulent 3D Embossing Folder also by Altenew, just trimmed and matted onto more navy card.   Again the sentiment is from the same MFT stamp and die set as the previous card.

Whilst I had the stencil out, I had another play with different colours - this time going for pink butterflies (Tattered Rose, Worn Lipstick and Picked Raspberry) - its still a full panel for now whilst I decide what to do with it but I thought I'd share it whilst I'm here.

If you've not tried these new layering stencils yet, then do give them a go - stencils have come a long way recently and they are super easy and quick to use too!

Catch you on Sunday

Tara