Let Your Dreams

This effusion of butterflies is my latest mixed media art piece. It began with a challenge, use a patterned paper, and a thought about starting forward on one's future.

Let your dreams take flight on soaring wings! Let your imagination and your heart fly free.

Supplies

InLinkz.com

Putting It Together

My head was so deep in the creating, I kept forgetting to take pictures!  That means this might be a smaller post, too, or just one with fewer pictures *laugh*.

After I started making the project, along came another challenge to use items from your "I'll use this later" bin, those things you either made for something else and didn't use or items you were experimenting with and just didn't use yet. I was already doing that, so this fits that challenge, too *laugh*

This project is on 6" x 8" canvas board. At the very back, I used Distress Ink, Broken China and a little Peacock Feathers,  to cover the whole canvas and then, with Dina Wakely Leafy stencil, I used Distress Ink to make a sort of leafy backdrop. I used Mowed Lawn and Peeled Paint on one side, Shaded Lilac and Victorian Velvet on the other.

This was my stopping point on the first night. I had the background. I had the sentiment. I had an idea for some of the butterflies, but wasn't sure what else or which pieces to use.

The flowers are from a Heidi Swapp pad. I love the watercolour-y look of them. I was sad to see this was my only sheet in the pad and couldn't remember but had a feeling it was with a teacup fairy (Thinking of You).

The sentiment and the single butterfly beside it are from the KKS Butterfly Dreams stamp set. I love this sentiment! The sentiment is stamped on transluscent pearlescent paper with Versamark and embossed with a metallic sapphire detail powder. I added a bit of glittered netting below the the sentiment as kind of a matte for it.

The butterfly was also from my "I'll use it later" stash. It was the first butterfly I made for a House Mouse project (Book Mouse: Fill Your Heart with Wonder) but wasn't right for that project.

The butterfly swarm on the left is from a Memory Box die, Fairyland Butterflies. I had cut it from lightweight black cardstock that had adhesive sheet on it. On a sheet of tracing paper, I used Distress Ink (Spiced Marmalade, Antique Linen, Fired Brick, Mustard Seed) and Perfect Pearls (Confetti White) misted in water. When the paper was dry, I attached the butterflies and later fussy cut away the remainder of the tracing paper. This gives them their effervescent translucency. This is one of the pieces that had been in my "I'll use it later" bin. I made it at the same time as the butterflies from another project (Butterfly in the Sky) but without doing a decoupage technique. These ones are less shiny but sparkly from the Perfect Pearls.

The butterfly that's sitting on the table is one I made last Autumn. It is from one of the very first stamp and die sets I bought after getting my Big Shot, Limitations by Tim Holtz. I was experimenting with how the stamp and die worked and used paper that happened to be close by. I put it in my "I'll use it later" bin and forgot about it *laugh* I did end up using it in this project.

The last "I'll use it later" item is the resin 'lace' at the bottom. This was cast with left over resin while I was casting other items. It's coloured with Pearl Ex Interference Violet.

Day 2: I decided to use the Spellbinders butterfly die and cut it from a patterned paper out of the Kaisercraft Hopscotch pad. The pattern is subtle colour on colour. To add more colour, I used some of the Media Mixage translucent paper (scrap from a different project) for the wings. I used Distress Ink () to shade the silvery paper to a violet. I used Tombow Mono to glue the die cut to the translucent paper and then fussy cut it after it dried. Since I planned to have this butterfly hanging over the edge, I decided to do a second cut of a different paper in the same pack, a glitter dotted brown, and glue it to the back. The light still goes through the wings, but the butterfly is pretty from both sides.

At this point I attached the large butterfly and a couple more small ones I had stamped, embossed, and coloured on the same silver translucent paper.

I also die cut a medallion from Spellbinders in the translucent pearlescent paper to cut up as lace accents in the background (I had tried a lace doily but it was too opaque and clunky for this project).

I attached the resin strip with glue dots as well as most of the butterflies. For the resin strip, I used 4 dots. For the butterflies I use a dot or partial dot stretched along the body section. The sideways butterfly at top in this picture is attached with foam mounting tape because it's opaque.

I wasn't satisfied with the look so, I rearranged a couple butterflies and added more, including the large blue one I had been thinking was too opaque (but turned out to fit perfectly). I also added another  butterfly on patterned paper (pink one lower left in final pictures). The pattern is subtle and water colour-y.

All of the small individual butterflies are from the wonderful KKS Butterfly Dreams stamp set.

The butterflies are inspirational on my mantle next to the wooden Buddah we got years ago (at Cost Plus, I think).

Challenges

Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps blog June Scrappy challenge: Anything But a Card

Simon Says Stamp blog 20 June Monday challenge: Use Patterned Papers (I used 4: flowers in the background, 2 on the large butterfly bottom right, and on the butterfly bottom left.)

Private Facebook group - Stamp, Share, and Inspire: Make something with the little extra cut outs or bits you have on your desk or work space. (I call that my "I'll use it later" bin. It really is a bin, a basket, on the shelf behind my desk.)