Thin Cuts Blog Hop

Welcome to the Thin Cuts Blog Hop! There are several Close To My Heart consultants featuring the Close To My Heart Thin Cuts and I am sure that you will see some awesome ideas along the way! So, sit back, relax and let's get started. 

You should have arrived here from Michelle Loncar's blog.
If you get lost, a list of all blogs can be found on Melinda Everitt's blog. 

For this blog hop, I wanted to do a rainbow style card. I had an idea in my head but I wasn't exactly sure how it was going to work. As I played around with the butterfly Thin Cut from the Dreamin' Big Cardmaking stamp set, I figured out what I wanted to do - a rainbow circle with the butterflies around the outside... it seemed so easy. 
I chose colours that were bold and bright but that also ranged from yellow through the rainbow. Figuring that I needed between 10-12 butterflies, I stamped and then cut out each of the butterflies using the co-ordinating die. I ended up needing 11 butterflies in total. Using Cricut Design Space, I selected a sample butterfly and carefully measured it to be the same size for my sample as the ones I had cut using the die. Using a number of circles, I placed the butterflies around a centre circle on the square until I had 2 circles the sizes I needed and then sliced them to get my ring. That was the easy part! 

Placing the butterflies temporarily in place, I very lightly marked the 6x6 card base with pencil and began the task of inking each section using the same colour of inks with which I had stamped my butterflies.  Blending them was not terribly difficult in most cases but some combinations were more difficult than others (ex. New England Ivy and Lemon...) I did this using sponge daubers. A photo of this is shown below (not every card looks beautiful in the process of being created, as you can see here...)

Then came the addition of the black cardstock on top, followed by the exact placement of the butterflies. The sparkles - large and small - were individually coloured to match each of the butterflies. The larger ones are on the butterflies and the smaller ones are scattered on the centre piece of black cardstock, surrounding the white heat embossed sentiment that is taken from the same stamp set as the butterflies. After the black cardstock was on top, it was missing something... a coloured layer was definitely needed underneath. So, after carefully removing the outer piece of black cardstock, I had to slice off the smallest edges to accommodate a piece of Willow cardstock under the black - but it also needed the centre cut out of it for the rainbow to be seen.... the things we don't consider with last minute changes! 

This card took me an enormous amount of time but I am so happy with the final result. 

The next blog on the hop is Tracey Pierce's blog. 

I'm sure she has a wonderful project to share with you.

You can order any of the CTMH products from the Seasonal Expressions 1 Catalog or the Annual Expressions Catalog seen on this blog hop on my OBA or by contacting me directly.

Every single Thin Cut (individual or combined with a stamp set) is 25% off this month ONLY!

Get them while you can! 

Products used are listed below: 

Paper: White Daisy Cardstock, Black Cardstock, Willow Cardstock

Stamps: Dreamin' Big - Cardmaking (bundle with the Dreamin'' Big Thin Cuts) 

Inks: Versamark, Lemon, Tangerine, Blossom, Raspberry, Cranberry, Thistle, Pansy, Pacifica, Lagoon, Willow, New England Ivy

Accessories: Cricut - Insert Shapes, Dreamin' Big Thin Cuts, White Embossing Powder, Heat Tool, ShinHan Markers, Sharpie Markers, Sparkles, Bitty Sparkles, Sponge Daubers

Enjoy, 

Alyson