How many butterflies?

Hello all!  I'm back with my second offering for this month's Bugs, Bees and Butterflies theme at Country View Challenges.

I'm afraid I couldn't resist going down the butterfly path again.  Despite all the numerals you can see, there are always countless butterflies to be found here at Words and Pictures!

Really this should have been here earlier in the month, had it not been for my computer collapse.

So I'm very grateful to Chris and Doreen for sorting me out with a swapped date!  But better late than never, eh?!  So here it is...

I played with one of the burlap canvases, the Layered Butterfly die and some of my new Distress Stain Sprays - yeah, well, I wasn't going to be able to resist grabbing those while I was in the States, was I?!












For the background, I started by gluing strips of book pages onto the burlap with multi medium.  I used a hard bristled brush to stipple them down into the woven texture of the fabric.













I added some crackle texture paste through a nice baroque stencil (maybe Prima, not sure?) and then gave the whole thing a wash of gesso.














I started to blend on some blue tones, Chipped Sapphire mainly I think, to add depth and highlight some of the textures.











I cut some Tim Holtz flourishes out of Grungeboard, and applied all sorts of embossing powders to them.

There's some Walnut Stain Distress Embossing Powder in there, and some Ranger Weathered White, and perhaps a touch of the Ranger Enamelware too.

Now for the butterfly himself.  I used some of the Motif Resist Paper Stash, picking one of the white sheets to use my new sprays on.  (I couldn't resist them, but the resist built into the papers will!)












There are various blues and greens involved... I'm not sure any longer exactly which I'm afraid.  But I'm pretty sure I used Faded Jeans and Chipped Sapphire Distress Inks to highlight the raised texture once I'd embossed my butterfly.













I rubbed the Versamark inkpad across the raised parts too, and then clear embossed over it for a touch more definition and gloss.











And of course there's some of my rescued curly notepad wire playing the part of his antennae.  I used Evergreen Bough Distress Paint to tint them from their original white.











I used the leftover pieces of spritzed Resist paper with the Trellis Frameworks die to create some additional embellishments.  These have a softer more muted colour tone, as there's no clear embossing over the inks.













Some of them were only pieces or half-shapes - so I took advantage of that to make them go round the edges!

I also added some little wooden buttons, altered with the matching Distress Paint colours.

The Remnants Word Band has had just a touch of Distress Paint added and then wiped away, leaving the lettering in beautiful relief colours.

And I must have been feeling in a frivolous feminine kind of mood, as I felt the need for this nice shiny bow tied around the canvas, attaching the Word Band... lighter than air and slightly glossy, like the butterfly himself.






I had such a lovely time making this one - and you can see I caught a nice sunny day for the photographs, which always makes a difference, and definitely reflects the joy this make gives me.

I hope you like him too... and there's still plenty of time to come and play along with our Bugs, Bees and Butterflies theme this month at Country View Challenges - go on, defy that winter weather! - and I hope we'll see you there.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I'll see you soon.  I've just managed to sleep my first night through since getting back, and I'm really really hoping to get back in the swing of visiting now that the butterfly has properly "landed".

Beautiful and graceful, varied and enchanting, small but approachable, butterflies lead you to the sunny side of life.  And everyone deserves a little sunshine.
Jeffrey Glassberg







Just in case you missed it yesterday, you can still catch my Nicecrane Sponsor Spotlight over at Our Creative Corner.

There are lots of ideas for using printables, and quite a pretty tag (feminine and frivolous again, not to mention pink), though I do say so myself!