Stamped Butterfly Mother's Day Card

Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps is having their March Release celebration this week. One of the events is a challenge to stamp on die cuts. This is the card I made. I based the design on the following sketch by Operation Write Home:

I rotated the sketch 90 degrees and substituted the butterfly die cut for the center rectangle. I have a set of nesting butterfly dies, and chose the largest one to die cut the focal point. I used 3 images from a floral stamp set to stamp the flowers, then colored the images with Inktense pencils. I put some Peacock Feathers Distress Ink on an acrylic block, then used my water brush to pick up some color and paint in between the flowers. I pulled the yellow gingham patterned paper from my ample scrap collection. For the sentiment, I used this digital stamp set from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps. I mapped out the placement on the pink cardstock, opened the stamp in Photoshop, resized & positioned it, then printed it out directly on the cardstock. After that, it was simply a case of adhering the patterned paper and butterfly to the pink cardstock and then that to the card base.

Initially, I was going to leave the butterfly without a body; just the silhouette with the stamped & colored images. But the more I looked at it as I worked on this card, the more "naked" it seemed! I was still having commitment issues, though, so I didn't want to draw & color a body in using a black marker, on the off chance that I didn't like it. So I ended up cutting a body out of black paper. Then I positioned it on the butterfly and judged the effect. I liked it, and so just glued it down. I drew the antennae on the card front in pencil after I glued the butterfly down, then went over them with a black marker. And that finished this card!