Stained Glass Vellum & Tutorial

This is a beautiful and simple technique. Look at the butterfly…….doesn’t it remind you of stained glass? As a child and as an art major in college, I was always in awe at the stained glass window’s in our Catholic Church. Several years ago I even took a class in stained glass and made my own. It was one of those short-lived hobbies as I prefer to stamp and not get my fingers cut!

Read on below and I will show you how this technique is completed:

Start out with “Vellum Cardstock”, “VersaMark” and “Black Embossing Powder”. As you will notice in the picture below, I keep all of my embossing powders in separate containers and keep a plastic spoon stored in each container. Why?………because as you sprinkle your powder for your embossed image, you can hold your cardstock over your container and dump the excess inside without making a mess!

In this picture you will notice the stamp “Flourish” as my butterfly background. I stamped two images with “VersaMark” on “Vellum Cardstock” and embossed with “Black Embossing Powder”. Use your heat gun to melt and set your embossing powder. TIP: using “Vellum Cardstock” for this project is preferred over “Vellum Paper” as it is thicker and stands up better to heat. The “Vellum Paper” will curl and become flimsy. Ask me how I know!!

Using your “Big Shot” and your “Beautiful Butterflies Die” cut out the number of butterfly’s you will be using for your card. I cut out two sizes just to show you the tutorial.

Flip your butterfly’s over on the backside. Using “Stampin’ Write Markers” start coloring your butterfly. You can use the lines created by the embossing as your guide as they show through on the backside. In this picture I started out with “Certainly Celery” for my color:

I continued and added “Rose Red”, “Elegant Eggplant” and “Not Quite Navy”. The coloring job looks real messy but wait until you flip it over:

Now for the reveal, flip your butterfly’s over. Aren’t they just beautiful?

I used “Elegant Eggplant” for my background layer. For the Scallop Circle Die, I used “Whisper White” and “Certainly Celery”. The oval part is embossed with the “Perfect Polka Dots Impressions Folder. I added a sliver of “Elegant Eggplant 1/4″ Grosgrain Ribbon” off to one side of the scallops. The butterfly was attached to the card by using a “Brad”.