Focus on Faith Bright Butterflies! by Sara Furr

 Blessings, my dear AI friends!

Welcome to the first edition of "Focus on Faith", for the month of May. 

Today, I have a bright and colorful creation using an alcohol ink background that I created like 2 years ago and never used, so I pulled it out and decided to have a play with it.

 I can't tell you what exact colors I used here, because it was so long ago, but I can tell you that I used Tim Holtz Alcohol inks in a Blue, yellow, and blue, and blending solution on Yupo paper. You just apply some blending solution to the Yupo paper here and there,  and then add drops of alcohol ink here and there,  and let it spread on its own, or you can use a blower tool to push the ink around,  or just keep turning your cardstock side to side to keep the ink moving until it dries. So much fun!

Once my alcohol ink blending was all dried, I applied alcohol lift ink through a stencil, and then wiped off the ink with a paper towel, and it lifts off the alcohol ink and leaves behind the stenciled image.

 I took that background, and I strategically placed the butterflies from the "Butterfly set" on the lighter areas of my background and then stamped out the butterflies and greeting with black Archival ink. I thought these butterflies were perfect for this because they are bold images.

I distressed the edges of the Yupo paper and then I die cut the pretty eyelet border rectangle from the Decorative Journal Page 1 die set and I cut it in half and used it on either side of my stamped panel to add a decorative border. I added some sequins to the panel and added foam tape to the back. I created a 6x6 card base from black cardstock and a matting frame also. I used the black to mat my piece of neutral dsp from the Father's Day Paper pack, and distressed the edges of both and adhered them together and popped them up on my card base with foam tape. To create my decorative strip, I used a piece of white scalloped edge lace and machine stitched a strip of the mint green stripe dsp, also from the Father's Day Paper pack to it, and adhered it to my matted dsp and then popped up my focal panel over top.

Have you ever played with alcohol inks? They are so much fun to play with, and they create something totally unique! If you don't have alcohol inks, you could try something similar with watercolors or dye inks on watercolor paper. You would just have to use bright or strong colors as your base, and make sure it is completely dry before trying to lift the ink through a stencil with a damp paper towel.

Please let me know if you like this technique. Thank you so much for stopping by and I hope you got inspired to have a play with your alcohol inks or if you don't, to try them.

Many blessings my dears, 

Sara Furr- The Crafty Farm Chick

These are all the supplies I used: Links to Ai products are below.

Art Impressions products:

#5200- Butterfly Set

#6072- Father's Day Paper pack

#5768- Decorative Journal Page 1 Die

4774-Stamp positioner

Archival black ink

Other products used:

-Alcohol inks in pink, blue, and yellow.

-blending solution 

-air blower

-Yupo paper

-stencil

-alcohol lift ink

-Paper towel

-scissors to Distress cardstock edges

-white scalloped lace

-sewing machine

-sequins

-die cutting machine

-foam tape, adhesive