Stickled Butterfly Tutorial and "A Friend Knows You" Card Details

There's always something special about each birthday. My special scrapbooking friend, Mandy, has some very special traditions indeed since her birthday falls on St. Patrick's day. I created this card for her with a wee touch of the Irish in the greens and Irish blessing inside using the April ScrapThat! Main Kit.

"A Friend Knows You"

MK

Today I'm sharing the techniques on how I created the sweet butterfly in my:

Stickled Butterfly Tutorial

Often I'm looking for just the right embellishment and don't have the right size, shape or color in my stash. Here is an easy way to add a lovely butterfly to your project using supplies from your kit along with a few items most of us have on hand. 

Supplies: 

Supply List:

~ Sizzix Big Shot or other die cut machine (Not pictured)

~ Scrap of paper **April MK

~ Donna Salazar Wonderful Wings Spellbinder die. You could also use a different die, a punch or electronic cutting machine image.

~ Clear Rock Candy Stickles **April MK

~ 2 pieces of covered wire **April MK (Cut off of small roses)

~ Kaisercraft Lemon Pearls **April MK

~ Selection of inks in the colors of your choice. For this butterfly, I used Ranger Distress Ink in Scattered Straw, Tea Dye, Rusty Hinge, and Vintage Photo. Not pictured - I also used black soot to color the green wire for the antennae

~ Adhesive - I used glossy accents (Not pictured)

Step 1. Cut butterfly from paper scrap.

Step 2. Color butterfly with inks. Start with the lightest color across the entire butterfly and then add the next darker color staying closer to the edge of the wings each time so you get a ombre effect from the body to the tip of the wings.

Scattered Straw

Plus Tea Dye

Plus Rusty Hinge

Plus Vintage Photo

Step 3. Squeeze distress stickles generously on the entire butterfly and spread out with your finger or a paintbrush.

Step 4. Allow to dry. I let mine sit overnight. You can use a heat tool with distress stickles since the glitter is glass; however, I find that the medium the glitter is suspended in tends to bubble when heated, and I prefer to air dry for this technique. 

Step 5. Color the wire pieces with ink in the color of your choice. Curl the ends of the wire. I used round nosed pliers, but you could wrap the end of the wire around a toothpick. Glue the wires to the back of your butterfly. I use glossy accents as my adhesive. 

Step 6. Place self-adhesive pearls down the center of the body. You can see that I used different size pearls here than for the butterfly in the card, so just use whatever pearls you have left after creating your other projects. 

Step 7. These butterflies are quite flexible and you can fold up the wings and gently curl them to add graceful dimension as seen in the close-up on my card.

You can change up these sweet sparkly butterflies to coordinate with your project by using different ink colors as well as altering the size or shape of your butterfly. The sky is the limit. 

Now I'll share the details of my card with you.

Tips and Techniques:

Handcrafted Flowers ~ I used thick handmade mulberry paper and Donna Salazar's Bitty Blossoms flowers to create the white flowers and the same dies and a paper scrap to create the leaves. The rust flower was an extra from a previous ScrapThat! Kit.

Word Art ~ I received this gorgeous Shakespeare Word Art created by Cec at Sugar Creek Hollow as a prize for entering my work at this wonderful challenge site. 

Pearls ~ I added adhesive backed pearls from my stash to accent the frame. If you don't have the right color, a little alcohol ink or a swipe with an alcohol ink marker will change a light colored pearl to the color of your choice. 

Inking ~ I inked the edges of the card and mats for a shabby vintage feel. 

Die Cut Mat and Frames ~ These were cut with my Cricut Expression 2 along with the Close to My Heart cartridges, Art Philosophy and Artiste. I wanted to use these cartridges in particular since my friend, Mandy, is a CTMH consultant. 

Irish Prayer ~ I found this prayer on the internet and used the Irish looking UnZialish font to type it up on my computer. 

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ScrapThat! is celebrating National Scrapbooking Day by holding a round robin. Check out the details here. 

I have the ScrapThat! DT challenge this month, and if we get 10 or more participants I'll be giving away an extra prize ~ 6 of my handcrafted twine flowers in a variety of spring colors and sizes. So come join my challenge to incorporate fibers and/or cording into your project. You may also enter it in other contests, so if you have a project that fits the requirements, stop by ScrapThat! and show us your gorgeous work. The challenge details can be found here.

And you won't want to miss Amy's gorgeous April ScrapThat! Sketch Challenge.

I hope you'll try out my sparkly Stickled Butterfly!!

I'd love to see your version, so please leave a comment with a link

and I'll drop by to see your creation. 

I also have some very exciting news to share. I've had two submissions accepted for publication at Scrapbooking.com for the upcoming May Issue. This is a free on-line scrapbooking magazine with lots of great projects, information, and tutorials. You can find them here: www.Scrapbooking.com. I'll be sharing links when they go live. 

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Thanks for dropping by! I treasure your comments.

~ Blessings ~