Butterflies and Books and Cats, a greeting card fiasco - part 1

Made for swap partners in the Little Good Things swap R-2.

The first set of these pretty butterflies was an utter disaster. The stamping went fine, nice vibrant colours and a lovely velvety dark black…

…that smudged all over when I tried to fussy cut the butterflies out, ack!

Running short of time here but I thought maybe stamping the detail colour and the outline in a more permanent ink over a master board would look ok. Not too bad, a little busy maybe.

Once I cut them out though, I didn’t like them very much at all. sigh.

At this point it was way too late to start over again but I did it anyhow with colour ink pads and archival ink for the outline on mixed media paper. I liked how they turned out enough that a couple of days later I rescued the smudgy ones by sticking double sided tape to the backs and covering the fronts with clear packing tape. Now I have a bunch of pretty stickers to play with, yay!

The title of this post may seem a bit confusing but believe it or not, this wasn’t even my first attempt at card making for that swap! I had a completely different idea at first!

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I actually love the ones cut from the master boards and plan on stealing that idea…

They are all gorgeous…so glad you found a way to rescue the smudged ones…

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I love these butterflies - and I’m lucky enough to have received a rainbow’s worth of them!! They do have a lovely velvety finish in real life too :heart::butterfly:

What a drama to make them happen - but they turned out so great!

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I am so happy that you like them! It was really frustrating not being able to get my ideas to work at first, glad I stuck to it. The stickers I made for myself will come in handy for decorating more swap packages I’m sure :hugs:

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Aaaack, that’s stressful, realizing at the 11th hour that your plan has gone awry. But…I love the set I got, and it makes me so happy to know you were able to salvage a so-called “failed” attempt!

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I am so happy you like them! I was this.close. to giving up, I’m telling you. Frustration! Oh well, it all turned out in the end.

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All are lovely. Actually I like the one with the smudge. It looks like part of a shadow … you meant it to be that way! Yeah, that’s it!

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They are so pretty!

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They are all so great! I’m not much of a papercrafter myself, I somehow never think of mixed media techniques.

I really love all the butterflies! Thanks so much for sharing your process, I love to read and see about that. I think that it is bold and awesome to also share what didn’t work for you! So HUGS for that! :orange_heart:

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They turned out beautifully! Eventually. :kissing_heart: The smudged image reminds me of what would happen if we handled actual butterfly wings the way we handle our paper pieces!

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I love that you gave us a glimpse into your creative process!

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Thanks friends :blush:. I am very happy I persevered and also that my adventures gave you smiles and ideas. That’s the best!