Butterfly Images for Your Art – First Set

Below are a series of vintage butterfly plates.  You are free to use these in your art.   To download an image, click on the image to expand it, right-click and select Save As.

Butterfly Postage Stamps ATCs

ISIS

It's Isis in all her glory.  The background is made from faux gold metal flakes and blue mica flakes.

Fantasy Film Butterfly

A few months ago I took a class at the Glitter Art Institute in Cottonwood Arizona.  In the class I learned how to make a butterfly using wire and Fantasy Film.  

Fantasy Film is a translucent iridescent film that comes in several colors.  The technique involves creating a frame with wire and ironing layers of the film onto the frame.

The holes and irregular edges are made by burning the film with a candle.  The wispy white stuff is Fantasy Fiber which is shredded film.

The body is made of buttons and the antenna is made from fun wire.  I added beading to the wings and base of the body.

You can purchase Fantasy Film, glitter and other products on-line from the Glitter Art Institute.  The site also has on-line tutorials showcasing their glitter techniques.

 I have lots of ideas of how to use this technique so stay tuned.

Egyptian Inspired ATC Fan

To see a tutorial on how to create an ATC fan click here.

Egyptian Papyrus for Your Art

In 2000 I went on a trip to Egypt with my husband and parents.  I purchased the images below which are printed on papyrus.  You are free to use these in your art.   To download an image, click on the image to expand it, right-click and select Save As.

Below is a blank piece of papyrus which has a great texture.

Marie Antoinette Domino Book

For the longest time I’ve wanted to do something with dominos.  Holly in the Marie Antoinette group is hosting a domino book swap so I thought here is my chance.  To help us, she provided a great tutorial and a couple of examples.  It’s a one for one swap so I make one and receive one in return.  I just loved making this book and it will not be my last (I actually made two so I could have on to keep).

Front Domino – I painted the domino with silver alcohol ink then stamped the front domino using black Staz-On ink. I added rub-ons and embellishments.

Back Domino – I painted the domino with silver alcohol ink and added rub-ons and the silver fleur-de-lis.

Side - I edged each of the dominos with silver and black trim.  The book is tied together with lace ribbon.  I added feet to the bottom of each domino.

Inside – The inside is made of accordion folded cardstock that I decorated with various papers, images and rub-ons.  This was the biggest challenge for me because you can’t use bulky embellishments.

Love Shack

I call this house “Love Shack” because it makes me think of the B-52’s song.  Particularly the line “Tin Roof…Rusted”.  This house is made of foam core board and the roof really is rusted.  It’s not a paint treatment but real rust.  I thought I’d post this as a prelude to my tutorial on rusting (as I’m running a little behind finishing it).  The house is an end result of a class that I and the Creative Team ladies attended at Paper, Metal, Scrap in Payson AZ.  The best part of the class for me was learning the rusting technique.  I loved it so much I rusted an entire wall.  To decorate our houses we were given vintage magazines for images and boxes of odds and ends for dimensional embellishment.

The door on the front of the house is a glass slide that has been edged in copper tape and soldered.  The paper above the door is cupcake liner paper.

On the right side the windows are made from dominos with images of couples.  The paper above the windows is more of the cupcake liner paper.

The tree on the left side of the house is made by crumpling very thin paper, applying glue then shaping.  I decided to shape an apple tree.

The back of the house is again dominos with images of couples.

I’ll be posting more houses made by the Creative Team in future months (they went crazy making whole villages).