Creative Medium Butterflies

I have a thing for butterflies. I have complete admiration for a creature that goes through an extreme metamorphosis to become something delicate and beautiful. For me, butterflies are the epitome of Mother Nature's magic. My inspiration for this card came from an afternoon spent at the butterfly exhibit at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. I no sooner walked into the exhibit when a butterfly fluttered near only to land on my hand. It stayed there for the next 45 minutes while I walked around admiring the foliage and the various species of butterflies flitting around. Definitely magical.

I began this project with a 4 x 5.25 piece of purple cardstock. Using a stencil and a sponge dipped in silver Delicata ink, I created the square maze for the background.

Stencils are so easy to use and offer up so many possibilities in the crafting world.

I love the shimmer that the silver Delicata ink lends to the background. It's a rich, thick ink that really stands out.

Next, I used a different stencil and Imagine Crafts Creative Medium in iridescent purple. I used painters tape to mask off parts of the stencil to avoid accidentally stenciling where I didn't want to.

Creative Medium is wonderful stuff! It's and acrylic medium, about the consistency of peanut butter, that spreads on easily with a palette knife.

Once done, I carefully lifted off the stencil and there were three iridescent butterflies!

I let the butterflies dry and then repeated the stenciling process using the stencil, my palette knife, and the Creative Medium. You can see how the butterflies have begun to dry and really show that iridescent sheen, while some of the wet circles still look a little more like paste.

I wanted to give the piece movement, so I made another butterfly to give the piece some air. I began with an old scrap of sheet music which I spread very lightly with the Creative Medium to carry that same iridescent shimmer.

When it was dry, I stamped it with a butterfly using StazOn Gothic Purple ink. 

Then I cut out the butterfly and attached it to my background piece.

All that was left to do was to mount the piece on a card backing and send it flitting on its way to brighten someone's day.

This card took a couple of hours to complete, but only because of the drying time needed. Actual time spent making it was about 20 minutes. This is something that a beginner could easily do!

Imagine Crafts / Tsukineko Products Used

• Creative Medium - Iridescent Purple
• Delicata Ink Pad - Silver
• StazOn Ink Pad - Gothic Purple
• Palette Knife

Other Products Used

• Stencils by The Crafter's Workshop
• Sponge
• Purple cardstock
• Sheet music scrap
• Beacon 3-in-1 Glue
• Butterfly rubber stamp by Finnabair

Experimenting with Creative Medium

I have to tell you about the fun I've been having! A week or so ago, I got a big box of happy from the fine folks at IMAGINE Crafts. They carry all manner of Tsukineko products as well as their own relatively new line of acrylic mediums, inks, and sprays, etc.

One of the things I've had fun playing with is their line of Creative Medium. Creative Medium comes in a variety of metallics and iridescent colors. It's a somewhat thick consistency that works well for adhering paper bits when making collages, or it can be slathered on with a palette knife like thick paint, with or without the use of a stencil.

For this piece, I used Creative Medium in gold and a stencil by Tim Holtz. I simply placed the stencil on my canvas (in this case, a 5 x 7" panel) and spread the Creative Medium over the top just like soft, creamy butter! I carefully scraped the excess off of my stencil and then, just as carefully, pulled the stencil away from the canvas, resulting in the image you see below. The stencil cleaned up easily with soapy water and a rag.

Once the Creative Medium had dried, I went to work giving it all the abuse I could think of. I really wanted to test this stuff and see what it could do. Boy, am I ever impressed with how it holds up! I dripped ink (from re-inker bottles) on it and spritzed it with Ink Potion No. 9 to make it blend and drip and run. Once it dried I dribbled more ink on it and spritzed it with Windex (which gives it a more puddled, mottled look). I let everything dry well and smeared white acrylic paint down the "blank" side to mute the color a little, and then stamped* gear images and wording and butterflies on it.

For the butterfly, which comes from Gina's Designs: Butterfly of Gears, I used IMAGINE Crafts' line of irRESISTible Pico Embellishers. I colored the gear side with gold and the wing side with bronze and the butterfly body with Tuxedo Black. I traced the wing on clear acetate and used StazOn Studio Glaze in Gothic Purple to color it. While it was still sticky, I simply used the glaze that was already on it to adhere it to the wing. As you can see a little bit in the picture below, when the light hits it right, it has a stained glass effect. I did use a spacer to adhere the butterfly to my background just to give it more air and light that would highlight that stained glass effect.

As you can no doubt tell, I had all kinds of fun playing with my new goodies! Here is the background for another piece that I did. This will give you some idea of how absolutely striking the Creative Medium iridescents are against a dark background.

I began with a canvas (again a 5 x 7") to which I applied various colors of blue, green, and white acrylic paint. I let it dry and cure thoroughly over night. Then, same as before, I used a stencil (this time from Stencil Girl) and my palette knife to spread on the Green Iridescent Creative Medium.

I let it dry overnight and... Voilà! As you can see, the "white" paste magically dries to a beautiful, shimmery green against the dark background.

I wish I had a way to show you how much the iridescence makes the piece "move" depending on how and where the light hits it. You'll just have to take my word for it... it is gorgeous!

This is only the beginning of all the things I can imagine doing with my IMAGINE Crafts products. So, stay tuned, because I have all kinds of other things I want to show you.

Until next time... here's to wild imaginations and crafting!

*Stamped images are: Gears by Stampin Up! and Butterflies and Curiosity Definition by Tim Holtz