I have used one of the beautiful papers from Blue Fern Studios Sanctuary collection, and then built up some layers in the middle using tags from the embellishment add-on, doilies and small pieces of left-over paper. The background was made using a stencil, gesso, clear gesso and mists. For tips, look at my tutorial further down.

 

Lots of gorgeous flowers from the kit and flower add-on! I adore the Petaloo Ephemera!

 

Here's my next page:

 

 

I just love the butterflies from Art Anthology! They come in many sizes and there was so many in the package that you can use lots and lots and still have tons left :)

 

 

Loving the Prima resin birds too!

 

And now for the background tutorial. I took lots of pics when I made this background, so I hope you can follow my creative process. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask - here on the blog or in the Swirlydoos forum :)

 

 

I started with a piece of the Garden Plaza paper, that I had left from making another layout. This paper has a beautiful, bright and bold pattern, which sometimes can be hard to cut and scrap. But if you put on a thin layer of white gesso on, the pattern still shows through and you can add embellishment without getting a too busy page.

 

I added a thin layer of white gesso across the paper, using an old plastic card.

 

After the layer of gesso, I used a stencil and some texture paste, creating a pattern in the top and bottom.

 

I glued some of the Art Anthology butterflies across the page.

 

I then used a large brush, and painted a layer white gesso over the butterflies.

 

After the gesso had dried, I used the same stencil as before and with some clear gesso I created more pattern. It's important to use clear gesso last, to get the effect I'll show you next.

 

After drying the clear gesso with a heat gun, I misted here and there (and made some drips too) with pink and silver mists. I also let the ink run a bit.

 

I then used a dark purple mist (Primas colorbloom Pressed Petals) and sprayed a couple of times. This color is very intense, so I didn't want too much of it. Just a couple of sprays. I then took a small brush and let the three different mists blend. The clear gesso let the ink blend beautifully together!

 

My next step was to cut the paper and distress the edges. I glued the paper on another Sanctuary paper, Botanical Garden, and added pieces of cheese cloth (from the embellie add-on) underneath.

 

I then cut the edges of this paper too, distressed the edges and put strips of one of the BoBunny papers, Shadow Vintage, underneath.

 

As a final touch, I used the BoBunny stamp from the main kit and randomly stamped using black ink. Below you can see a close-up of the background, and the cute little butterflies: 

 

There you go! A mixed media background with lots of texture from gesso, texture paste and the butterflies. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial :)

 

Have a great day!

 

xoxo

Helena