Zing Into Spring

My third, and last, paper-crafting submission this week is for Get Funky!, the monthly challenge from the Funky Hand design team members.  The challenge was to "Zing into Spring" using greens, yellows and lilacs - and, of course, at least one Funky Hand paper.  The latter is readily achieved, as its Papercraft Factory CDs are crammed full of gorgeous papers.  I chose nine designs from the Marching On collection on the Craft the Year Away CD.  Cutting these into squares, inking their edges and layering them on green card squares was straightforward.  Mounting the nine squares onto the card slightly less so.  Hint: take time to get the central square correctly positioned, then work up, down and across from it and place the corners last.  Pencilling a position number on the back of each helps preserve your carefully chosen layout as you stick them down.

At this point, my progress slowed down somewhat, as I couldn't decide what to use as a topper.  Knowing that lilac would be the main colour, I had intended a flower.  Initially, I teabag folded one from squares of two lilac papers.  It was pretty but overwhelmed by the background.  Next, I tried layering punched flowers from various lilac papers but that seemed too regimented and certainly lacked zing.  Then I remembered a gorgeous Creatables butterfly die and used it on lilac and lime card.  It's a very detailed die and needs to go through the Cuttlebug twice.  It then takes a bit of time and patience to poke out all the little bits of the design but is well worth the effort.

I definitely felt I was making progress by this stage but the lacy butterflies didn't stand out enough from the busy background.  The thought that I'd have to alter that was firmly pushed to the back of my mind.  I drew around the die and hand cut a plain butterfly from each of the cards. I edged both sets of wings with inks and layered them up, with contrasting hand cut bodies.  This looked promising, but the effect was still a bit flat.  I clear heat embossed the bodies and bent their wings up a bit and now they looked a lot more dynamic and fluttery.

Picking up my original floral plan, I punched some small lilac flowers, stuck tiny lime punched flowers in their middles and clear heat embossed each of them twice.  The end was in sight.  I punched some tiny lime coloured leaves, dabbed them on an inkpad to produce a variegated effect, randomly grouped the flowers and leaves together.  The finished result is quite a busy card but the colours bring the elements together well.  I'm pleased, and after I've submitted it to the challenge, it'll be on its way to my aunt for her birthday on Easter Saturday.

I've always felt that making cards to deadline cramps creativity but this week I've found that it's helped focus my mind.  A big part of that, I think, is having a brief to fulfil, rather than a blank card and a huge craft stash, which can be overwhelming.  I'm really looking forward to the next round of challenges, and trust that a short gap before embarking upon these will recharge my crafting batteries.  Time to pursue other activities for a while.