Butterfly Frame (by Carole)

Hello everyone, we are joined today by our regular Guest Design Team member Carole Cann. Carole will be creating three projects for us this month to inspire you, and her first project is a fabulous piece of home decor; a pretty picture to give to a friend, but that you may want to keep for yourself!

Carole writes:

Good morning  everyone. I am delighted to be showing you my first project as Guest Designer for September.

I have used the small butterfly from Butterfly Poppy Collage, a stamp from Poppy Meadow and the words from Pretty Poppies. The ivy at the top is from the Tall Trees set.
Permanent inkpad
Watercolour pencils
Glossy Accents
Chalk finish inkpads
15cm wooden frame
25cm square frame I had in my stash

I have started with a 15cm wooden frame which has an 8.5 cm heart aperture in the centre.
When I make a project like this, I always try it out on paper first. This enables me to make mistakes in the positioning and layout, which I can correct before stamping onto the real frame.
I did work out beforehand that the butterflies would stamp evenly around this size aperture.
Of course, it does not need to be an aperture, you could make a 15cm card with a heart die cut in the centre, and the butterflies surrounding it.
When I stamped the butterflies, I started with the top three and then stamped one side, trying to space them as evenly as possible. I then 'mirrored' the butterflies on the other side.
Make sure they are completely dry before colouring them in.
I covered each butterfly with Glossy Accents and left them to dry thoroughly.
Then I wiped over the background with the chalk green inkpad.
The background in the larger frame is stamped with another of the Poppy Meadow stamps and the ivy.
For the centre, I used the frame as the template and drew lightly around the aperture with a pencil onto a square of green card.This helped me to position the words and flowers correctly. Rub out the pencil line, stick to the back of the frame and attach to the background.
Further details can be found on my blog.

Thank you for visiting and I look forward to showing you my second project next week.

Happy crafting,

Carole.

Thank you for a delightful project Carole, and for the advice about practising on paper first. We often recommend that you try your ideas out on a cheap piece of paper first, as it takes away the pressure of wasting your more expensive card and other materials. Top Tip Carole!