Happy Mother's Day Butterfly Tags

 Yes, I know--another Mother's Day card. What can I say? When I'm on a roll, I'm on a roll! I based this one on this sketch by Operation Write Home:

As you can see, I really stayed true to the sketch. But I decided to shake things up a bit with the tags, and have one large image rather than 3 small ones. After I cut the tags from watercolor paper, I adhered them with repositionable adhesive onto a piece of scratch paper, right next to each other. Then I stamped the butterfly using Archival Jet Black ink, and colored it with Inktense pencils, blending the color out with my water brush. Since I had this one image, I placed the tags a bit closer together than they are in the sketch, so the image wouldn't be too disjointed.

For the background, I used a doily stamp from a set by Little Yellow Bicycle. I stamped it 4 times on white cardstock in Versamark ink, then clear heat-embossed it. I applied 3 colors of Distress Inks over this with my ink blending tool. Then I sprayed the panel with water, to get the color moving. (A unique property of Distress Inks is that they react with water.) After the colors blended sufficiently, I set it aside to dry. When it was completely dry, I thought the colors were too pale, so I decided to try a technique I saw Kristina Werner demonstrate on YouTube. I got my non-stick craft sheet, and applied the Distress Inks I'd used directly to it. Then I sprayed that generously with water, and smooshed the cardstock face-down in the puddle of colors. While I did get the more intense color I wanted, the ink also soaked the cardstock & "stained" the clear-embossed doilies. If I were to do this again, I would emboss with white embossing powder instead of clear, and do it on watercolor paper instead of cardstock. But I hadn't realized I'd be using water that much, hence the use of cardstock. I think it still gives a neat effect; just not what I had envisioned when I started.

The striped yellow paper is, again, from my scrap collection. I adhered the tags to that panel, after threading baker's twine through holes I'd punched, then adhered the panel to the card front. For the sentiment, I used a greeting from this stamp set by Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps. I printed it on white cardstock, rounded 2 corners with my We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper, inked the edges with Distress Ink, and glued it to the card front, which I then adhered to the card base. And there you have it--another Mother's Day card for a hero to send home to his/her mother!

I am entering this in the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Tag It"
Simon Says Stamp's Monday "D is for Distress"