Beautiful Butterflies -Watercolour Stamping

I know I’m late in the game on this, but here I’ll be using the Simon Says Stamp Beautiful Butterflies stamp set that came in the June card kit.

I love butterflies stamps and dies about as much as I love Snowflakes stamps and dies, which is a lot. I do wish Simon Says would give us the option of getting the coordinating die set in these kits, as I almost always want coordinating dies with all my stamps. But, they’re easy enough to get separately.

Here, I’m using a technique I haven’t tried yet. I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, as I’ve been making cards for over a year and a half now, but we all have techniques we love to use.

Supplies Used

Simon Says Stamp – Beautiful Butterflies (from June 2020 card kit)
Distress Oxide Inks – worn lipstick, evergreen bough, spiced marmalade, spun sugar, shaded lilac, aged mahogany, squeezed lemonade
White Embossing Powder
VersaMark Pigment Inkpad
Simon Says Stamp Sequins Strawberry Shortcake
Strathmore, Hot Press, Watercolour Paper
Memory Box Big Butterfly Wing Die
Altenew Morning Frost Ink pad

The Card

I took my large butterfly wing and cut it out on craft foam. I used this cut out like a stamp on my positioner. I wanted a light shadow of the large wing behind my main stamped images. I used Altenew’s morning frost – inked up the craft foam cut-out, stamped it once on a scrap piece of paper then stamped the remaining ink on the foam onto my panel. This gave me a light impression.

Next is a simple watercolour technique where I used one colour of distress oxide ink (a bright or dark colour works best) and stamped my image. I then take another colour of distress oxide ink (a lighter colour than I initially samped with), ink up my stamp and spray it with water. I then stamp my image, transferring the ink and water to the paper. I remove my paper and smacked it down on my craft mat to move the water and ink down the paper. If there wasn’t enough water on the paper to move the ink, I added a quick spray to the paper help.

I did this with three of the butterfly stamps, using multiple colours.

One other technique I used on this card was smooshing the card onto left-over water and ink from smacking the card down on my mat.

Once my butterflies were done, I heat embossed a sentiment from the kit – “even as the rain pours, I’m here for you” onto black cardstock. I also used black cardstock as my border for my card panel.

For the inside of my card, I wanted to add a little something, so I did the same thing on the inside with morning mist ink as I did with the large wing cut-out. I inked up one of the butterfly stamps from the kit, stamped a scrap piece of paper then took the remaining ink on the stamp and using it on the inside of my card base. This gave me a very light shadow, which is what I was looking for. I added the image below but it was hard to capture it on camera, and is a bit more visible to the naked eye.

To finish the card and add a bit more character, I added some sequins by Simon Says Stamp, the Strawberry Shortcake pack.

I did this for another card with different butterflies, a different sentiment and some different colours. I enjoyed using this technique and is something I would like to try with flower stamps in the future.