Butterflies, flowers and a teabag.

I keep seeing Lin creating wonderful cards like this and these for The Shabby Tea Room Challenges and keep thinking I must try the challenge. Although I love shabby chic style cards I find them very hard to make and never know if I’ve added too much or too little on my cards – maybe too much on this one! So here's is my first attempt at the challenge.

Butterflies, flowers and a teabag., originally uploaded by heather maria.

Stamps used (Hero Arts):- Antique Engravings & Silhouette Grass

The current Shabby Tea Room challenge is to use something old and something new. Since I only started making cards less than two years ago, I don’t have anything very old in my stash. So the things on the card that qualify as being old are the buttons which I’ve cut off old clothes over the years and the copper and diamond stickles which I bought when I first started making cards. The new things are the rhinestone flourishes, a technique which is new to me, the lace and a new teabag! Because of the faded flowers and the wheat in the background, I'm also submitting the card to the Everything Autumn Challenge at Hero Arts.



I just came across this brilliant video for making paper flowers and had to try it out. It’s great fun and I’ll definitely make lots of these in different colours and shapes. I made the two bigger flowers using this technique and the smaller flower is made up of two layers of Hero Arts flowers – thanks so much Vanessa and Linda for these!

I clear embossed the Silhouette Grass on a piece of silk and dyed the lace (originally white) with tea. The butterflies are stamped on paper which is cream and has green and copper swirls – thanks Paula and Dawn, I’m enjoying using the goodies you sent me. Sue (Stampersuzz) sent me these gorgeous rhinestone flourishes - thanks again Sue. I'm delighted to have used so many items on this card from blogging and non blogging (you need to start a blog Linda!) buddies in the U.S., Germany, Australia and New Zealand!



To finish I just added machine stitching, thread for the antennae, stickles and lots of buttons and beads.