Butterfly Trio

Hi Everyone.  Happy Wednesday.

Tonight's card is one of the RAKs that I created for Sparkly Hannah day, it is for a young lady fighting breast cancer.

I used a sketch layout from the Go To Sketches edition of Papercrafts magazine in May 2010.  Sometimes, I just get stuck into a rut using the same layouts, and this magazine forces me to get out of my comfort zone.  I liked the look of the layout on page 96.

I also used a color challenge from stampinwithstacey.  The color scheme was More Mustard, Always Artichoke, Kraft and Early Espresso.  This made me think of fall and how many butterflies we have around in early fall.

Here's my card

Card recipe:

• Card stock:  Whisper White, Early Espresso
• Ink:  Always Artichoke, Early Espresso.  The butterflies were colored using copics
• Stamps:  Flores Suaves, Inspired by Nature, Because I care
• Accessories:  Lots of Tags die. Basic Pearls (colored with copics)
• DSP:  Neutrals DSP pack
• Tools:  Paper Snips, Stampin' Dimensionals, Big Shot

Card instructions:

• Cut Early Espresso card stock to A2 11 x 4.25 – score and fold on the left hand side
• Cut DSP to 5 1/4 x 4 and adhere to base
• Cut Early Espresso layer to 3 3/4 x 4 1/8 and adhere to base
• Cut Whisper White to 3 5/8 x 4.  Ink up Inspired by Nature grass stamp with Always Artichoke and stamp onto Whisper White.  Adhere to card base
• Ink up Butterfly Flores Suaves stamp and stamp three times onto Whisper White.  Color.  Adhere to "grass layer"
• Put Whisper White scrap piece through Big Shot with the Dies.  Rub a little ink around the edges.  Stamp Sentiment with Early Espresso ink.  Adhere to card base and adhere two basic pearls.
• Decorate inside

Jaydee tips:

• Force yourself out of your comfort zone by using a sketch you wouldn't normally use
• Remember the power of three.  Three elements on a card are always much more pleasing.  (It's a standard design trick!)
• To give the butterflies motion, adhere one side of the wing to the card stock.  Alternate wings.  On this card I adhered one wing on the left, one week on the right and the top one in the middle.
• The sentiment tag was a little too white, so adding a little ink helped to tie it all together.
• The horizontal stripes work really well with the vertical stripes from the grass. 

On a personal note:  Today we had a great fall downpour and the humidity dropped dramatically.  Of course, it brought a lot of the leaves down from the trees.  So, the garden is certainly starting to look fall-ish!  It seems to have been a very fast jump for the heat of summer to fall.

I haven't had any chance to craft this week and I am really having withdrawal symptoms.  Hopefully, I will get to do something this weekend and maybe get around to doing some challenges.

I'm off to finish dinner.  We are roasting up some fall vegetables (butternut squash, baby zucchini, cauliflower, onions, garlic, 4 different colors of carrots in Spanish olive oil.  All goodies – except for the olive oil were bought at the Farmer's Market this weekend.  We are mixing that with some freshly picked potatoes mashed with goat's milk butter, vegetarian sausages and vegetarian gravy.  Yummy!  Then we will be watching Just Desserts on Bravo!

Several of you asked for the recipe for Rach's carpet cleanser from this post.  For this you will need three types of essential oils.  Bergamot, Lemon and Grapefruit.  You will also need some Baking Soda.  Mix several drops of each of the essential oils with 4 tbs of baking soda.  continue to build this mixture until you have sufficient to cover the carpet that you need.   We used a jugful.  The jug holds 2 pts.  Once you have the mixture, sprinkle it on the carpet and rub into the carpet.  Leave for about 30 minutes or so and then go back and vaccuum.  We also added some to our mattress and couches.  I would suggest you check a small area just to make sure you don't have any problems.  We didn't and the house smelled fabulous afterward.

Prayers tonight for Germaine, T, Pri.  Adelle, Lesley and Rach – and their furbabies.  For John and Sue.

I hope you all have a fabulous Thursday.  Thank you for spending time in my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  You know your visits, your support – and your comments are greatly appreciated. 

Hugs

Jaydee