Pretty butterflies

This card started as something from my scrap pile. I'd made the background then got stuck in my usual rut of liking it too much to do anything with it. I eventually decided that I should turn it into something since it was too pretty to languish any further. It turned out so pretty that it was really hard to give away, but my friend's birthday was just the occasion to part with this.

It started out as just the butterfly background (Hero Arts) stamped in versamark to make a resist effect (I may have embossed it, can't remember). Then I added distress inks over top with my blending tool. It was at this point that the action resumed and the card got turned into something. I added some more stamped images (Cornish Heritage Farms) and painted the butterflies with twinkling H20s (Northern Lights) so they have a real shimmer. I also spritzed it with some Glimmer Mist. The sentiment (Impress) is in VersaFine (Lagoon) and the butterfly is punched from sook-wang tape and glittered with Stampin' Up Glitter. It's adhered only on the body part so the wings are raised slightly. If I were a certain stamping legend, I would pad under the wings with cotton before mailing. Luckily I am no legend (not even in my own mind) so I was spared that bit of mania. The card base is Pacific Point and so is the sentiment mat. Some Stream Dimensional Pearls added a bit of a finishing touch. Dimensional Pearls are always a bit of a gamble because they sometimes blob out or are too small or go on crooked. You can see examples of each peril on the card above. Once you start, though, you are committed, because no matter how bad they look now, they will look worse rubbed off. Trust me.

Thanks for stopping by! Are you glued to the Olympics? I am. I love the winter Olympics. Way, way more than summer Olympics and the coverage seems better too. Summer Olympics you don't see much live sport, but winter they seem to broadcast sport and not have so many talking heads. Also the summer Olympics are just endless running around in circles. In the winter Olympics it's burly athletes (let's not get gender biased here) hurtling down mountains at death defying (let's hope and pray) speeds. The girls are right into it too. I may have to break down and buy us all red Olympic mittens.

Well, back to packing for my class at Heather's tomorrow. It's a big class and we're doing a marathon three cards. Elite stamping ;-) I've trained for seven years for this moment....will I make it or will I be faulted on a time technicality. More likely I'll lose points for inky fingers and bad jokes!