Let Adventure Card

This afternoon, I wanted to get back into being creative with watercolors (or at least trying). I was inspired by the Stamperia paper page in the picture. Unity’s Let Adventure kit was just sitting out, not put away, and I noticed it had a butterfly in it! Bingo...now I wanted to try to create a version of the butterfly part of the page, but with the butterfly standing out on my card. I had to pull in a few other stamps from the following kits: Vintage Lace, SMAK 12/17, and SMAK 12/15. The beautiful Let Adventure kit was designed by Jolande van Oosterhout and Marleen van Meerendonk, master mixed media stamp designers.

I started with a special watercolor paper I received in a kit that is very textured. To begin, I first used the corner stamp with my Misti using brown archival ink. I then used a blue archival ink to stamp the circle. I then turned to a gray archival ink to stamp the butterfly. With this stamp, I also used a black archival ink on the edges. I mixed greens and blues to paint the butterfly and used my Kuretake black to darken the edge again. Once I was satisfied, I then started painting the background, blending blues into yellows and browns. At this point I totally dried the whole page. I added more colors to the butterfly and started to color a box around the circle (again mirroring the paper). I then started to add a shadow around the butterfly and decided to add another interest item. I hand stamped the postage stamps (behind the words) and added color to the stamps and a box around it. The paper had a rust color in it..so I made this whole piece more rusty looking with red, orange and brown. I dried everything again.

Now I started pulling out stamps to add faux ephemera to the background, using lace, bubbles, plants, and fabric patterns. I used blue, coffee, and green inks for this. I then added a little watercolor to the plant section (bottom left). I also used a few stencils with gesso and textured paste to add a little white. I used a white paint pen to add to the black sprays and to dot the butterfly wings. I embossed the sentiment on the paper. Once I was satisfied with playing around, I cut it down, blackened the edges, backed it with Stamperia paper which I added fringe to, and finally, added copper stud embellishments and a wooden gear (colored with Stazon inks and chalkwriter pens).

I am pretty pleased with how this turned out. Patterns would have been clearer on a less textured paper, but I like the richness of the paper. If I were to do again, I think I would have stamped the sentiment in the beginning and done a box around it. Hope you enjoy this card! Till next time, happy crafting!