Monday 1 August 2011

Butterflies and Dragonflies

Good morning everyone, I can't believe it's August already - where did the year go! As it's the start of a new month, there's a new theme over at Make My Monday and it's been chosen by Suzanne. The August theme is Things With Wings and this week we would like to see your creations with Butterflies and Dragonflies.
I was so pleased to see this as I love butterflies and as I'm sure you know already, they quite often pop up in my creations. My project this time is a collage which started life as a piece of recycled packaging.



I painted the edges of the packaging with a couple of shades of blue acrylic paint and then added some vintage music score which I coloured by adding a Tim Holtz large flourish mask and then sponged with Dried Marmalade Distress ink.
I next added a couple of torn pieces of pages from my vintage butterfly illustrations book sponged with Spiced Marmalade Distress ink.
I then made the remaining elements using a gorgeous set of butterfly stamps by Non Sequitur which I won from The Stamp Man back in January. I used the clever text stamp on parchment card, stamped with VersaFine Smokey Gray ink and added a few tiny butterflies and dragonflies. I sponged this with Shabby Shutters and Tumbled Glass DIs and then added a little colour to the butterflies with a blue marker. I tore the edges and then added somewhat wonky white stitching with my sewing machine - practice needed I think as I haven't sewed paper before!
I stamped the butterflies on parchment card and acetate and then coloured them all with Promarkers (on the back of the acetate images or the ink would come off!). I cut these out and layered them up with Diamond Glaze clear glue.
Finally, I stamped the postage stamps from the set, colured them with Promarkers and Distress inks and cut them out with postage edge scissors. I added these to the collage and then stamped on a faux post mark from the stamp set to finish.

I'm entering my collage in the following challenges:
The Stamp Man - Stitching
Crafts4Eternity - Anything But A Card
Fashionista Friday - Summer (the butterflies I see in my garden at the moment)

Thanks for looking,
Fliss xx

18 comments:

Jacqueline said...

Great piece Fliss - beautiful summery colours and gorgeous butterflies - Jacqueline xx

Dolly Daydreams said...

Good morning Fliss. This is beautiful !A perfect collage and love the butterfly stamps in the corner, great idea.

Marie

Fiona said...

Lovely work Fliss and so 'green' to recycle packaging. I have tried sewing on cards a few times and I didn't find it easy to sew in a straight line, faux is much less difficult. lol!

Brenda Brown said...

Gorgeous collage Fliss. I love the layers and elements you have included and a fabulous colour palette.
luv and hugs {brenda} xoxox

Valerie-Jael said...

Beautiful piece, Fliss, the colours are lovely, too! Hugs, Valerie
PS Hope your cold is better!

cheryl said...

oh this is one super piece hun love the background and adore the butterflies,hugs cherylxxxx

The Sparkly Fairy said...

Great card!

Diane said...

Just a quick 'Getting to know you' visit, Fliss! I love your work and am really looking forward to being a part of the Polka Doodles team!
Diane x

Suzanne B aka brookfies said...

Fliss, Your work is always gorgeous and you have done my first week's challenge really proud.

Cazro said...

Absolutely beautiful. Wonderful DT sample. hugs Caz

pinky said...

Absolutely gorgeous! Thanks for joining us at C4E this week.
Pinky

Aquarius said...

Well done for recycling - great collage

Geri said...

Such a cute blog! Thanks for linking into artsee bloggers.

Daniele said...

this is so lovely, such a gorgeous palette of colours
hugs

lisa said...

What a gorgeous project, there is so much to look at on it. I love your stitching, I think the "wonkiness" as you put it adds something, it doesn;t want to be perfect. I haven't tried machining on paper yet but I'm sure it'll be all over the place when I do.
Thanks so much for joining us at The Stampman this time.
Hugs Lisax

michele said...

Fabulous! Thanks for joining us at C4E this week hugs x

Basslady said...

a beautiful and romantic creation!

hugs and kisses from germany,
silvi xoxo

Anonymous said...

Hi Fliss, this is simply gorgeous its gotta be my new favourite !! Stunning composition and colours
Hugs June xxxxx