Make your Own Background with Cheery Lynn Dies

Hi ladies!
Kianel here with you today.
As we are starting our butterfly themed week here at CLD, i thought it could be fun to show you how to create your own background paper using CLD dies. Of course you can use your Cheery Lynn Designs dies to die cut paper and make decorations but wouldn't that be fun to just use them and create your own stamps and masks? So here is a tutorial to show you how to achieve that! And believe me, i had so much fun making this background paper. Now i just have to find time to finish it with photo and embellishments...LOL!...and i will show you the final result in a forthcoming post of course.

STEP 1

I chose to work with a non textured cream 12"x12" paper. First i covered it with ditress ink "antique linen" (light coloured ink) using a sponge. I took the Cheery Lynn die "exotic butterfly large 3" (DL119) and placed it on a matching sized piece of foam. I placed everything in the Cuttlebug using the Cuttlehug to get every single detail of my butterfly. I did the same with a piece of double sided tape paper. I haven't got any but i am sure that Cheery Lynn foam is best for that use and you just need to cut once.

I then adhered it to the back of my foam butterfly and there was my stamp ready to be mounted on a block.
I did exactly the same using "exotic butterfly small set" (DL113) which you are going to use in step 4.

STEP 2
Carefully cover your large butterfly stamp with Stazon opaque white ink and apply to your inked paper. Do the same with your small butterfly trying to create a chain on the side of your paper. When it is dry, use your sponge to cover your whole paper with distress "tea dye" which is darker. The magic stuff is revealed: the distress will not stay on the stamped images and they will remain clear!

STEP 3
In a 240gr paper, cut one big butterfly and 2-3 small ones. There you have your die masks.

To get deeper effect, cover your stamped images again and work with an even darker distress like "brushed corduroy" just around your masks, not everywhere. Place your hand on your masks each time you are covering this area. Work carefully as you don't want to tear up your masks.
Leave the die cuts on your butterflies as masks. Using a text stamp, apply over your masks (don't forget to take the ink off the sides of your stamp to avoid a straight rectangle. Apply your text stamp randomly on your paper using the same technique.
To have a more vintage look, distress your borders by sanding them and apply distress ink "walnut stain" which is the darkest one on all borders.

 STEP 4
I used a foliage stamp from FLORILEGE DESIGN (french stamp company) to decorate my borders. Use the stamp you've made in step 1 with the small butterfly die and cover it with brown ink. Stamp randomly on your page.

STEP 5
Add some butterfly stamps (the ones i used are coming from a french company called katzelkraft) but with very little ink on it to just make shadows  and Finish your handmade background using a white gel pen and decorating your images.
And voilà!!!!

Here are the dies i used (click to go directly to the product)

      

As you can see the possibilities with Cheery Lynn Designs dies are just endless so have fun playing with these! and don't forget to pop by everyday here to see the stunning butterfly themed creations of my dt mates.
Love from France, Kianel.

You can see Kianel's finished layout on this post.