Morning all, have you taken part in the great butterfly count, it started over the weekend?
I did, I love butterflies and try to plant flowers that will attract them as well as keep the banking by our track wild. It's the perfect spot to literally spot butterflies as they land on the various wild flowers or just bask in the sun on the track.
Today I'm over at
Uniko with another Brand Ambassador inspiration post featuring butterflies. Last month I used the English Country Garden stamps and matching dies to create a couple of cards, this month I'm back with a couple more.
These two are totally different to the last pair and were inspired by the latest challenge over at Twofer.
I've used the large butterfly die from the set, a positive followed by the negative. First to cut out a vellum butterfly which I then stamped and embossed and secondly to create a mask and inked and stamped through it.
Here's the first inspired by
this card I saved ages ago.
I loved the movement that the die cut sweep created.
Using an Avery Elle curved die to create the sweep out of linen effect card an inset panel was added, made by inking a panel of white card with Picked Raspberry and Seedless Preserve DOx, splashes of water and over stamping with the large butterfly in the same colours of DI. The sentiment from Pure Florals - Peony, was stamped in the same two colours for the large sending and black for the small one. I heat embossed the lighter pink with clear EP before moving slightly to create the shadow by stamping again with the darker pink ink. A few PP sequins complete.
Last year my Joe Pie Weed was absolutely covered in small tortoiseshell butterflies, hence the choice of colour.
At one point the flowers looked orange as there were so many drinking in the nectar.
This year there are lots of small skipper butterflies on the wild flower bank as well as the early broods of tortoiseshells, meadow browns, gatekeepers, some peacocks, small coppers and the ubiquitous 'cabbage' or large white. Yesterday was a red letter day as I saw my first Silver Studded Blue of the year. They are extremely rare, just surviving in a few discrete colonies, the nearest is an old airfield about 2-3 miles away as the crow flies. They are very picky eaters, feeding off gorse, heather and bird's foot trefoil. It was next to the later that I spied my female, a little gem who must have been blown in on the prevailing wind.
Talking of wild flowers, this was the inspiration for the second card.
When you look across the wild part of our garden all you see are the grasses and wild carrot swaying in the breeze against the green fields and blue skies, well on a good day!
This technique has been around for ages, all I did was cut a piece of copy paper the same size as my base card, then cut out the butterfly using the same large die. The resultant mask was then taped over the card and the background inking added using Salty Ocean and Mowed Lawn.
I used the small elements from Organic Wishes to stamp the silhouettes in black before removing the mask and stamping the sentiment from English Country Garden.
