For a Friend

I was feeling in a spring-time pastel mood so I whipped up this lovely card.  

I love the mosiac madness stamp set with the cute little quatrefancy pattern that looks excellent when repeated.

To make this little embellishment, I added color to my simply pressed clay by dabbing it on my stamp pad, blending, and repeating until I reached a shade just lighter than the pink pirouette stamp pad.  Then, I rolled it out thin, and stamped the image with 4 smaller quatrefancies using the pink pirouette.  Press lightly and evenly, and you may want to stamp a few and pick your favorite.  Cut out around the image by pressing down, not dragging, a craft knife.  Then just let it dry!

My edges were a bit messier than I would have liked because I made the mistake of cutting it out after drying- which is difficult.  It works better to cut it before.

Butterfly You

Let me give you a little insight into my creative process.  

I start with something I really like--in this case it was the butterfly thinlit dies.  I then find a paper or an accessory to compliment it.  This paper comes from the occasions catalog and Sale-a-Bration, as well as the embellishments.  

Just start putting things on the page and rearranging them.  Start simple to get a basic idea of what you want and where you want it.  You can see I chose to do a patterned background, a butterfly as the focal point, and a sentiment. 

Then do it a second time but elaborate--use more layers, more accessories, more patterns, more wow.  I just keep adding things until I feel that if I added anything else I might ruin the card.  I don't usually show anyone the first version (lucky you!) and I almost always like the second card better...

...wouldn't you agree?