To create the cover, I laid the stencil onto my handmade paper and lightly traced the butterflies with a pencil. I moved the stencil around to create a pattern that swept across the page. It is not necessary to use all of the stencil cutout openings in your design, and you can easily make the design your own by changing the angles and positions of the different sized butterfly openings.
Using an Exacto knife, I cut around each of the butterfly wings that I had traced and intentionally left the central "body" section intact. This allows the wings to be folded upward while remaining attached.
Once all of the wing shapes are cut, gently erase the remaining pencil marks. You can then adorn the wings in any way you desire; I added some gilding.
Using the piece of Infusions dyed Bristol, I die cut two ornate butterflies. Then I traced the edge of the butterfly onto one half of a folded piece of cardstock and cut it out with scissors. This created a folding card where the top flap was in the shape of the butterfly and the base remained untouched. Using the butterfly quote stamp from Sara Neumann Stamp Set 33 (ESN33) I stamped repeatedly to create a background.
Using a blending brush and Distress Ink, I added color to the patterned butterfly shape.
This piece was then sandwiched between the two die cut pieces.
I inked a piece of vellum with Distress ink in Antique Linen, then created some tone on tone pattern using the butterfly image stamps from the set. Using the same Antique Linen Distress ink, I inked up my stamps and randomly stamped onto the colored vellum.
Since the images are stamped in the same color, they appear as a deeper shade of the background. I love the look of this, especially on the translucent vellum.