Art With Heart Creative Showcase - March 2021

Card Sketch with Butterfly Brilliance and Pierced Blooms

Hello. Welcome to Valley Inspirations with Andrea and the Art with Heart Creative Showcase for March 2021.

This month we are basing our projects on a card sketch. We can interpret the sketch "literally" or go wherever the sketch may take us.

I have created two cards using the sketch - both similar to each other though different dies sets and colours were used.

CARD 1: The design for the first card had been fluttering around in my heard for a little while. The Butterfly Brilliance suite has been released early by Stampin' Up! to whet our appetites for the coming release of the new 2021-2022 Annual Catalogue. It is such a gorgeous suite - I couldn't resist, especially as I love butterflies. This is the suite used for this card.

The Butterfly Bijou Designer Series Paper is stunning. One of the beautiful butterfly sheets was cut to provide the lower section of the card design. The background of this piece of DSP has a watercolour effect using Magenta Madness, Calypso Coral and Bermuda Bay, so I decided to water-colour a background piece that would extend from the DSP to the top of the card. I used the same colours of Classic Stampin' ink on a piece of Fluid 100 Water-colour paper. When almost dry, it was embossed using the Brick & Mortar 3D embossing folder. 

The embossed water-coloured piece and the DSP were adhered to a Calypso Coral card-stock mount - leaving a very fine border. Some white twine from the Snail Mail Twine Combo was wrapped around the card front twice and tied in a bow. I had a bowl of sentiments on my table and one seemed perfect for this card and it stretched all the way across the card front. The Many Messages stamp set was stamped using Versamark ink on Basic Black card-stock and heat embossed with White Emboss Powder. I just love the way a range of sentiments can be stamped and cut out with this amazing bundle. The sentiment strip was popped up on Dimensionals covering the join between DSP and water-coloured paper.

Delightful filagree butterflies from the Butterfly Wings die set were cut from the beautiful Pearlescent Speciality paper. The butterflies represented the ink splotches on the sketch however, positioning is a bit different given the size of the butterflies. Two were adhered to the card front and 1 was popped up on a Mini Dimensional. White Elegant Faceted Gems were added to the card front for a little glimmer.

The card front was adhered to a Thick Basic White card-stock card base with Dimensionals. The card inner was decorated with a strip of the same DSP and 3 fussy cut butterflies. A C6 Basic White envelope is to be stamped with butterflies from the Butterfly Brilliance stamp set. (Not pictured.)

CARD 2: I created a couple of cards for last night's AWHT Colour Creations Showcase featuring Purple Posy. One of the cards wasn't ready for 'go live' and still needs to be finished. That card used stitched flowers from the Pierced Blooms dies.  As there were left over die cut pieces sitting on my table, I designed this card around them, with the flowers replacing the ink splotches on the sketch.

A card front of Basic White card-stock was passed through the Cut & Emboss machine twice using the leafy Greenery embossing folder. The embossed card front was adhered directly to a Purple Posy card base. A piece of Hydrangea Hill Designer Series Paper was adhered directly at the bottom of the card front. A different pre-stamped and cut sentiment using the Many Messages bundle with Momento ink on Basic White card-stock was popped up on Dimensionals over the edge of the DSP.

Stitched flowers, pre-cut using the Pierced Blooms dies with Basic White, Purple Posy, Highland Heather and Mint Macaron card-stocks were sponged with White Craft ink on the outer edges. Three large to mid sized flowers had different colour centres adhered in place. The 3 flowers were positioned with Dimensionals similar to the sketch's ink splotches. Five little flowers and a number of white Elegant Faceted Gems were scattered around. 

A few remaining pierced blooms were adhered to a Basic White card inner. As the card will be hand delivered to a lovely customer who is grieving the loss of a a special friend, a few pierced blooms will be added to the envelope to give a hint of what may be inside. 

I hope you like the cards. It is a versatile sketch and could be used with a range of Card-stocks, DSP, Stamps and Dies. A sketch is a great starting point if you are looking for inspiration for your project.

I am blessed to be apart of a talented team. Knowing each of my colleagues in this Creative Showcase, I am sure they have amazing projects to share with you that have been inspired by the sketch. Don't miss having a look at each of their blogs. Rachel is our amazing host of the Art with Heart Monthly Creative Showcase, so if you haven't finished visiting all of the team's creations, you can visit/revisit Rachel's page at Handstamped by Rachel, where she hosts all the links to the other Showcase participants. I'm certainly looking forward to checking out everyone's interpretation of the sketch. 

I hope you join us again on the second Thursday of April for our next Showcase. 

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you are in Australia and would like a copy of the coming Stampin' Up! 2021-2022 Annual Catalogue or the continuing January - June Mini Catalogue; or if you have any queries that I could help with. Also, if you are interested in buying Stampin' Up! products, I would delighted to serve you.

Take care of yourself and your loved ones. I hope you stay safe, stay heathy and stay sane in these strange times.

Have a great month.

Andrea 😘