Butterfly Tree & Tree of Hope.

 Another two cards here, again both using Sweet Poppy Stencils, but this time with the addition of Gilding flake.
This one on the left is the Butterfly Tree, and after spreading gold paste through the stencil, it was put off to one side to dry. To add the Gilding flake, you need the stencil paste to have dried completely. When you are sure, then you need to replace the stencil over your design, and stick it down again.
 Next, using a small stencil type brush, pick up a little of the gilding glue.What Lucy Ellis showed us next was to dab off most of the glue onto scrap card, and if you use a scrap of black, you will be able to see what you are doing. By tapping off most of the glue, you avoid the problem of it going under the stencil.



It helps if you can decant some of the glue into a smaller pot as well.



After you have added glue all over your image, remove the stencil and drop into water. Now you are ready to add your flake, and this is where it can get messy!
I used some Sweet Poppy flake on this tree, and this flake is actually quite a bit larger than some others I have bought.
Just dab it onto the glue, and let it catch.Keep doing that until your image is covered.

At this point, do not sneeze, cough or make any sudden moves, or you will have flake launching itself in all directions!



When your image is totally covered, then you can begin to smooth it down, by gently rubbing with your fingers.This will start to pull away the majority of the excess flake, which can be be returned to the tub.

Next, take a stencil brush, or any brush you may have with short, fairly stiff bristles, and begin to work your way all over the image to remove all excess flake, and leave you with a nice clear design. You can either return this flake to the tub, or you can start another small tub of this very fine flake, for other uses.

In order to get some gilded butterflies to add to this tree, I needed some gilded paper. I took a half sheet of copy paper, and coated it in glue. I had already got a small pot of mixed flake from previous projects, and I tipped this on top, then added some more flake to fill in gaps. I smoothed it all off, started my tub of mixed bits going again, and this is what I was left with.






I used my Butterfly punch for a few, then used a length of it to cut from the Tim Holtz strip die.

I used an X-Cut punch to cut out some dragonflies too, which I wanted for the Tree of Hope card.







After matting each tree onto some dull gold card,I added a border punched edge to the Tree of Hope, then mounted it onto a 6x6 black card base. Using some Pinflair glue gel, I added a few Dragonflies to the tree. A very small Happy Birthday greeting was added below the tree.
The Butterfly tree was given a similar treatment,but was mounted onto a 5x7 white card base. The greeting this time was added on a strip of gold cardstock, and another punched border added to that. The butterflies were also added with the Pinflair glue.