Butterfly Challenge #79

Having just about recovered from having my lovely son and his partner here for twelve days, while also suffering with a virus that left me feeling like a wet dish-rag, I decided it was time to go looking for my mojo and get making again.

I needed a birthday card for one of my sisters later this month, so when I saw the Butterfly Challenge was open for four weeks this time, I thought I could combine the two.

My sister will be a magnificent 89 years old, so I wanted something  bright and bold for her and I chose some dark fuchsia-pink card, which is one that would normally be left as I came to the end of a mixed colour pad!

I used a cutting file that I think I bought from Craftuprint. It was for a tent-fold card with a circular, over the edge, centre piece, but it turned out to be a poor file because the two were welded together which meant cutting it would leave me with a folded card with a big hole in the centre, and lots of 'confetti'!! So I played around with it in my Silhouette Cameo design software for a while and managed to extract a file for the base and a second one for the centre overlay, which I made sure to save in my library so I can use it again sometime.

I cut the base from the pink card and the overlay from some pale cream card.

For the centre , I used a hero Arts stamp on the left over cream card, and sorted out some copic pens that toned with the pink card to colour it, adding some yellow Leonie Pujol sparkle ink to the flower centre. Then I cut them out with the matching Sizzix framelet die, and glued them to the cream mat.

For the butterfly I used  two matching Memory Box dies, one lacey and one solid, cutting the lacy one from some more of the cream card, and the solid one from a single layer of Fantasy film-watermelon, which has pink tints in it. I glued them together and then cut a second cream lacey layer and glued the filmy one to it just along the body. I cut a body from a snippet of the pink card and used it to attach the butterfly to the card. This gives the wings a lovely iridescent sheen which actually shows in the photo for once.

I wanted a bold sentiment but the one I had was just too big for the space. It should have looked like this. But I cut it from more cream card anyway and carefully trimmed away the 'swooshes' just leaving me with the two words. I moved them around until they fitted in my space and glued them on, and I am happy with the way this turned out.

So now I will Link up with The Butterfly Challenge #79 where the challenge this time is to use L is for layers,  the colour cream, and of course, a butterfly. And remember, you still have nearly two more weeks to add your own creations.

May Rudolph Day Challenge

Every month on 25th day, I try to make a Christmas card to enter in the Rudolph Day Challenge over at Scraps of Life by Scrappy Mo.

This month it has been a real challenge as we had my son and his partner out here for the last twelve days - they went home this morning - plus the throat virus I had in January has come back to haunt me, so I haven't felt up to doing much crafting. So I needed a quick and simple design and once again I turned to my Silhouette Cameo files to find one I haven't use so far. I settled on a simple skyline cut-out of Bethlehem, that makes an accordion fold card. As two copies fitted nicely on a sheet of 12 x 12 dark blue card, I cut it twice.

The file was just for the basic shape with the windows and doorways cut out, so I then made files for pieces of yellow paper to go behind all the apertures. I thought they made the back look a bit messy, so I also cut each section of the main card out again just a tiny bit smaller, this time in heavy white paper, and glued those to the back. It made the card a bit more stable, and much neater. 

Finally I opened a sentiment cutting file for the words "Joy to the world; the Lord is come", and divided it into four sections, rearranging and resizing them to fit between the windows on each section. I cut them from dull gold vinyl and transferred them onto the cards.

I was quite pleased with the end result and here it is. 

This was a very straightforward card to make so I saved all my files so I can make a run of them later. For now I have two completed to add to my collection.

I am linking this to the May Rudolph Day Challenge.