You Make Life Fabulous

My Favorite Things is having the second session of their Camp Create this week. Day 2's theme was "Coloring." Just color--anything. Their demonstration video showed coloring on kraft cardstock with colored pencils. Though it is not necessary to color on kraft, I have never really done this, so I decided to give it a try.

I used the "Simply Fabulous Sayings" stamp set from MFT, and paired it with Clearly Besotted's "Elegant Butterflies" stamp set. After cutting a 4.25x5.5" piece of kraft cardstock, I determined the position & width of my butterfly section. I lightly ruled lines with a pencil to mark the boundaries of the strip, and used those as a guide for where to stamp my greeting. After stamping that in Versamark ink, I heat embossed it with Ranger Super Fine Detail White embossing powder.

I next created masks for the 3 butterflies I was going to use. Then I used Memento Tuxedo Black ink to stamp the first butterfly on my card front, which I wanted to "break out" of the border of my strip, and kind of hug the greeting. After I stamped that butterfly, I masked the edges of my strip with painter's tape. I masked the main butterfly, and then stamped the rest of the butterflies, masking them as I went to keep my card one-layer.

When I finished stamping my butterflies, I removed the masking, and colored them in with Prismacolor colored pencils. I am still amazed at the vibrancy of color I got, despite coloring on a kraft surface! After I colored them all, I used a black marker to draw a line on either side of my butterfly section, just to provide some definition. I felt the main butterfly got a bit lost in the design. So I ended up coating it with my clear Wink of Stella pen. I think if I were to do this card again, I would color that butterfly in different colors than the others. But I think the shimmer provides enough emphasis. (I just wish it could show up better in photos!) I also colored in the dots on some of the butterflies' wings with a white gel pen, to tie that in with the white greeting. Finally, I adhered my panel to a white A2 card base.

I'm also entering my card in Virginia's View Challenge #22: "All About Colors."