Butterfly Birthdays

This morning I still had a Hero Arts Butterfly die on the table and couldn't resist making another butterfly card using this die. I love the dramatic colour combination on monarch butterflies so went with these colours on this card.

Die (Hero Arts) - Butterfly
Stamp (Hero Arts) - It's Your Day

I started by die cutting the butterfly in black. Then I applied distress inks (dried marigold, spiced marmalade and barn door) to white card and die cut the wing pieces from this and scraps of white card. After the pieces were inlaid into the black butterfly I placed it on an embossed panel and added some enamel dots and the sentiment.

Last night I also made a butterfly card using the same die for a fun scramble Judy hosted over at the Hero Arts Flickr Group. Judy's theme was to make a card using pastels but also to add touches of black. Whenever I've made pastel coloured cards in the past I've always stuck with white or pale colours, so it was great to try out Judy's theme and see all the wonderful creations everyone came up with. Now I'll definitely put black with pastels more often. You'll find all the cards here.

Die (Hero Arts) - Butterfly
Stamps (Hero Arts) - Solid Dots Pattern & It's Your Day

To start with I embossed the sentiment on the background and then embossed the dots with a stamp that Marilyn had sent me (thanks again, Marilyn:)) I used stardust embossing powder which has given a lovely sparkle to the card but is impossible to photograph!

As we were restricted to 90 minutes last night (and I'm a very slow cardmaker!) I just added pastel pieces to the main body of the butterfly and left out the small dots all around the edges of the butterfly. Also in my haste I managed to poke holes in a couple of pastel body pieces but sure a scramble wouldn't be a scramble for me without those kind of mishaps! For my touches of black I added some enamel dots and a black mat.

I'm submitting these cards into Simon Says Stamp Emboss It Challenge. Hope you are having a lovely and inky weekend. I'm hoping to get inky again later with some fun images my son Mark drew for me. I asked him to draw some quirky images for me to put on cards and now I can't wait to play with them!