A modern butterfly birthday

Today I'm sharing a card made for a friend (who makes beautiful cards herself) who once said butterfly cards remind her of "old lady cards".  So I wanted to do a more modern take on a butterfly card.

  

I started by applying embossing paste through a stencil onto a diecut cardstock panel.  While waiting for this to dry I diecut two happy panels, layered black cardstock between, and stamped birthday below the happy.  After the embossing paste dried I mounted the happy panel on top with foam squares for dimension, and added a rainbow of tiny diecut butterflies.

My tip today - Embossing paste adds great dimension, comes in both matte and glossy and can be colored with many inks.  Just always wash your stencil and work surface immediately, once dry it's really hard to remove.  Painter's tape works great to secure both your cardstock and stencil in place.  Removing a bit of the tapes stickiness first (by sticking it to your arm and then remove) will keep it from tearing your paper.  When removing the tape, pull it back onto itself at a 45 degree angle. This  will also help to prevent tearing. And using a "heavier" cardstock helps to prevent warping when using embossing paste.

Thanks for visiting, and Happy Birthday Dee!

Supplies used include:

Paper (Neenah Solar White 80 and 110 lb cardstock, scraps of colored cardstock)

Stamps (Mama Elephant Happy Everything, for "birthday")

Dies (Reverse Confetti Happy Pretty Panels Confetti Cuts, Impression Obsession butterflies dies, Simon Says Stamp Stitched Rectangles)

Ink (Hero Arts Black Dye Ink)

Other (Heidi Swap Stencil stripes, Dreamweaver White matte embossing paste, Scrapbook Adhesives thin 3D foam squares)