Brilliant Butterflies

When I saw this BEAUTIFUL image at the Color Throwdown I knew exactly what stamp set I wanted to use.

I had bought the Brilliant Butterflies stamp set from MFT stamps sometime in 2020 and had never gotten around to inking it up so today was the day or should that have been several days ago.....

OMG what a frustrating stamp set. I was ready to throw it out the window if I have to be honest. It has a matching die and multilayer stamping (4 layers). The set comes with a guide and the stamps are clearly linked on the sheet what goes with what. From what I had seen in many videos it was best to die cut first and then stamp the really detailed wings then the background colours. 

This is where it all came apart the colour guide is not a true reflection of what the final die shape is and the best thing was printing off the Black and White Image from MFT stamps for the dies and then look at the stamped images inside them (second day). FYI this is the image at MFT stamps for the dies that I am talking about:

I still got it wrong for 2 of them, so in case you are interested this is the answer to the what stamp goes with what die: top row from left to right is "orange" then "green", middle row is "teal blue" then "purple"; bottom row is "red" then "yellow". 

My dies are now on a magnetic sheet and clearly marked what "colour" they are. The colour ties them up with the layering guide that comes with the stamp set. 

Because the stamps actually have to be stamped in different places in the die it's really hard to line up a clear photopolymer stamp on a piece of white card stock and you had to do the tiny body and feelers as well. They released after this stamp set More Brilliant Butterflies which when I look at it online, addresses some of my frustrations with this stamp set. 

I now feel comfortable working with the stamps and dies but I have never in all my years of stamping taken 2 days to work out how to use a stamp and die. 

 Anyhow back to the fab challenge what an amazing image and in the end I don't think I did it justice but I worked out how to use my stamp set and dies and I know whoever receives the card will love it as it looks so fab and opulent IRL with all the gold; some embossed, some inked, some card stock.

Supply List:
Stamps: Brilliant Butterflies (MFT) and matching dies, Sainty Swiss Dots BG (Altenew)

Ink: Versamark, Blush and Rouge (Altenew), Fresh Freesia and Highland Heather (SU!), Metallic Gold (Encore)

Paper etc: White, vellum card, the gold paper came from a 12x12 DSP which had gold and white stripes ?CTMH but it seemed a really close match to the Rose Gold EP (Altenew), the friend die came from SSS a long time ago.

After all that I feel like I need to eat cake!

✿ Karen ✿