Butterflies Art Journal Tutorial

Hi friends! Today I have a sunny art journal page to share featuring large butterflies, as well as a butterfly window ornament. 

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While I was finishing this project, winter storm Malik was busy outside, although it wasn't so bad here. The snow did affect my project in a surprising manner, which you can read about below. I made a double page spread in my Large Dylusions journal, so that there would be lots of space for this big butterflies. There is a mix of paint, stenciling and stamping on the background. The butterflies were die cut with Tim Holtz Perspective Butterfly die.

These butterflies are over six inches wide and I thought they would also look great as window ornaments, with the light shining through all those intricate details. There is a second butterfly behind the colorful one, die cut from vellum. It gives an outline/shadow effect to the butterfly which almost glows.

Here you can see the colors and textures better.

Start by die cutting butterflies from heavystock paper.

Ink them with Distress Inks in various colors. 

Smear Distress Oxide Ink on a non-stick craft sheet, mist with water and lightly press the butterflies into the ink, here and there.

Apply a little Sizzix Gold Luster Wax around the edges of the wings and on the body.

Stamp with Simon Says Stamp Crackle background using tone-on-tone colors. Add a hint of script with the script stamp from the Document It set.

The journaling page was first coated with gesso and then painted with Distress Paint. Mist with water to blend.

The circles/bubbles were added with the Simon Says Stamp Mix and Match Circles Stencil using two shades of Distress Oxide Ink and an ink-blending brush.

Yellow dots were added in the same way, with Tim's Bubble stencil.

Stamp here and there with the Simon Says Stamp Stained Glass Background stamp and orange ink.

I also stamped some butterflies from Simon Says Stamp Thoughtful Flowers on the background with turquoise ink. The sentiment comes from Forest Scenery and was stamped repeatedly without reinking.

I just love how large and intricate these butterflies are. 

As I was struggling to photograph this project in the snowy and windy weather a whole lot of fine snow blew onto the page, giving me really cool and unintended textures, particularly on the Distress Oxide ink areas. 

Here you can see the snow itself, it made an irregular texture which would have been hard to create on purpose. If you look at the main photo of the project again, you will see that this texture is absent there, since it happened while I was taking the photos, and I usually start with the main photo.

I added a bunch of sentiments right onto the background and cut others into strips. 

If you stamp on Distress Oxide ink while it is still wet, the black ink looks like it is stamped beneath the the yellow ink, which happened on this sentiment. It was a mistake, but I liked it in the end.

This sentiment comes from Tim's Ponderings set.

I placed the butterflies so that the yellow butterfly was mainly on a turquoise area and the turquoise one, mainly on a yellow area.

More sentiments, a stamped butterflies and that pretty snow texture. I added some lines to the bubbles with a white gel pen.

I added some sequins as a trail after the butterflies.

Here you can see the actual snow on the page, as it was doing its magic.

The Crackle background stamp adds a vein-like texture to the butterflies.

You can see the gold shine in this photo.

And the yellow butterfly with the gold details.

The vellum butterfly was glued at the body and off-set a little. I also shaped the wings slightly.

I picked the most colorful butterfly for my window.

Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by here today!

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

* Please note: the links are affiliate links, for which I receive a small percentage of sales generated by the link, at no extra cost to you.