Musical Butterfly

Hello and good morning!

Well I finally did it, took a couple of days over the weekend, and got all the Christmas decorations down.  And put the house back together, too, because the two are not mutually inclusive.  OK, I still haven't swapped out the Spode Christmas dishes in the Welsh cupboard for the regular ones, but come ON - I needed some craft  time!  You get it, I know you do.

Today's card is a simple one, a thank you card.  Not a lot of pictures, not a lot of words.  Not a lot of embellishments, either.  Just a simple, straightforward card.  I've been wanting to use the SB dies Fanciful Flight for the longest time and thought the butterfly might look nice dressed up in musical notes.  Specifically, that from my old music books from 1970.  Yep, 43 years ago, when I took piano lessons.  I'm using the old exercise books because these fingers won't be dancing over those scales ever again, so why not get better use out of the books than letting them languish in the garage?

I used the trick of punching out three butterflies then layering them wing to wing to wing so that the middle die cut is popped up rather than lying flat.  That's why it looks a little 3-dimensional.  I layered three center diecuts as well, then adhered them to the bottom layer and embossed the whole thing.  Then I lightly dry-sponged the raised areas with Shimmer Paint.  I also glittered up the butterfly somewhat.

I cut a piece of soft wire and twisted it for the antennae and attached it between the layers of the head, then placed a pearl on top.

A layered greeting with inked edges and a couple of pink pearls, and that was the card.  See?  Just a simple little thank you card without a lot of fuss.  Sometimes simple is good, too.  (Though not too often.) 

Thank you so much for joining me today and I wish you a lovely day doing what you love to do, whatever that may be.  As for me, I think I will start crafting with music more often.

Happy crafting!

Supplies:

Stamps: Teeny Tiny Wishes (SU)
Paper: Whisper White, Pretty in Pink, CME - Rich Browns (Flourishes), SU Subtles stack (for 1st layer), 
Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa, TH Victoria Velvet
Extras: SB Fanciful Flight, Dienamics Oval Dainty Doily Duo, Dienamics Oval Stax dies; Modern Labels and Word Window punches; pearls, wire, CI Resplendence Angel Dust, SU Shimmer Paint, Vintage Wallpaper ef (SU).

Challenges entered:

Oozak - Anything Goes + Pink and Bling
Incy Wincy Designs - Tic Tac Toe (3 different papers, metal, pearls and/or bling)
Tammy's Scrapin' Corner #45 - Punch card (use punches) 
Digi Darla's #45 - Anything Goes [put DT after name]
Drunken Stampers #112 - All That Glitters
Allsorts #189 - Dies and Punches
Red Carpet Studio #19 - The Butterfly Effect


MFTWSC106 - Sketch (too late to enter challenge)

Golden Snowflake

Hello and good morning!

Yesterday was the day of the Annual Christmas Lunch that I've been sharing with two of my very good friends for the past 14 years.  We normally have it at my house with a full English tea, but this year we broke with tradition and had it at C's house instead.  Was a very nice change, and I was delighted to get to enjoy her Christmas decorations in her new house.  G. and I brought a dish each and C. provided additional dishes plus dessert, all of which was divine.  Afterwards, we had our gift exchange, and C's husband snapped a few pics.  We've missed our day only once in all these years, and it is something we look forward to as a break in the holiday hustle and bustle.  

Here are We Three Queens (G., C., and me!).

It was such a fun day that I was inspired to play in my craft room when I arrived back home.  Here is the resulting card.

It is one of the few CAS (Clean and Simple) cards that I have made.  CAS?  Me??  But the challenge was out there, so I did my best.  Of course there is still bling on it.  I mean, let's not get crazy here.

The color challenge was white, gold and one other color for which I used red, a classic combination.  I embossed the first layer with my trusty snowflake embossing folder.   

Frosted Designs is having a 12 Days of Christmas challenge in which I'm trying to play catch-up as I only discovered them a few days ago and they were already on the 5th Day of Christmas.  That, as we all know, means "5 golden rings."  The challenge is to use 5 gold (or yellow) items on your project, so I used a soft metallic gold paper for the strip of paper, glittery gold snowflakes (there are three layered together), ribbon with golden threads, gold embossed greeting, and a golden rhinestone in the center of the snowflake. 

Here is a picture of the snowflake showing how I've stacked three of them in graduating sizes. You can't very well see that there are three, but you can see how I've separated each one with a bit of a dimensional.  And the rhinestone center.

The greeting layers were also popped up for dimension after first heat embossing the greeting using SU gold ep.

And that's it for this card.  One thing about CAS cards - there aren't long lists of materials used.  It kind of stops me short in my description of these kinds of cards.  I do tend to ramble on, but CAS cards beg to be kept short.  Hmmm. . . 

So thank you for joining me today, and thank you C. and G. for a lovely afternoon!  

Until next time, happy crafting!

Ingredients:

Stamp: Teeny Tiny Wishes (SU)
Ink: Versamark
Paper: Cherry Cobbler, Whisper White, gold glitter, gold shimmer (The Paper Studio)
Accessories: SU gold ep, gold rhinestone, ribbon, Snow Burst ef (SU), Word Window and Modern Labels punches (SU), SB Snowflake Pendant dies.

Challenges entered:

Oozak Challenge #9 - Anything Goes + Red
Paper Playtime #90 - Christmas Colors
Tuesday Throwdown #126 - White Christmas
Ladybug Crafts Ink - Sparkliscious
Simon Says.... Snowflakes
Divas By Design #64 - Let It Snow
CCEE1249 - Favorite New Dies (New SB Snowflake Pendant)
C.R.A.F.T. Challenge 184 - Christmas
Fussy and Fancy #177 - I Love Christmas
3 Girl JAM Challenge #8 - Christmas Inspiration
Crazy 4 Challenges C4C166- Favorite Holiday Stamps (Teeny Tiny Wishes is my fave!)
Allsorts #184 - White, Gold plus One
Red Carpet Studio RCS#14 - "Frosty the Snowman" (or snowflake)
Creative Inspirations - Inspired by CAS
Pile It On #49 - Pile On the Embellishments
Incy Wincy Designs - Christmas with Snowflakes
Love to Create #45 - Anything Goes
Frosted Designs - 5th Day of Christmas