butterfly gala – Creative Juice by Loni

You know we bring you the latest and greatest from Stampin’ Up! in our monthly “New at SU!” blog hops, but this month is a little different: Our design team decided to *showcase some of our favorite RETIRING stamp sets *AND* show you some fabulous stamping techniques* in the process.

I chose to use the Butterfly Gala stamp set and the coordinating Butterfly Duet punch to teach you the Bokeh technique. Yes, there are more butterflies coming (I’ve shown you the Butterfly Brilliance bundle available now as an early release) but there are none that coordinate with a punch, so if you don’t have a Stampin’ Cut & Emboss machine (yet) or simply enjoy the convenience of a stamp set with a coordinating punch…NOW is the time to add both to your crafting arsenal.

Bokeh is a “blurry light” look in photography, and the concept converts well to paper crafting. I made two cards to show you how pretty the effect is as well as a few ideas on how to incorporate it into your crafting.

The Blending Brushes work beautifully for Bokeh: Begin by blending your colors onto a white piece of card stock.

Next, use a sponge dauber to add various depths of “blurry light” by sponging white ink through a template using a sponge dauber. I used different sized circle punches or circle layering framelits and a piece of window sheet so I could see where I wanted the circles to be. Did I mention that all our circle punches are also retiring???

After creating your Bokeh background, you can stamp directly on it with black in (as the first card sample shows) OR layer some small focal point on your card, leaving enough space to enjoy the background as well, as the “Hello Beautiful” card displays.

Now it’s on to Diane’s post to learn the Baby Wipe technique~ she is using the Arrange a Wreath stamp set that has been very popular with my customers this year!