I was so pleased to be asked by Catherine if I would be a guest designer for her challenge at Dragons Dream Tag It On, which is Purple and Circles (here). Thanks Catherine. I really enjoyed it.
As you know, I'm trying to make my tags with what I've got in my scrap box. The challenge is to follow the prompt AND use one real stamp. My starting point with this challenge was actually that I've recently had a birthday and top of my wish list were some beautiful Tim Holtz butterfly stamps, so I was itching to use them. When I found a half piece of gorgeous purple card nestling among my scraps I knew where I wanted to go with it, so it was out with the Purple Concord Distress Ink and I set to work...
Here's what I made
I pondered for a very long time about whether to make the tag in a different colour, wash it with gesso or go for broke and use the same shade of purple throughout. In the end I decided to challenge myself and go for the same colour throughout which would mean I had to make the butterflies stand out on the purple card purely by making the texture and shading work for me. With this in mind, I used a very old Sizzix embossing plate for the tag itself and coloured it with Distress Ink to bring out the texture. Then I stamped the butterflies in black archival ink and clear embossed to accentuate the detail. I used my Prismacolour Pencils to colour the butterflies. I was thinking Purple Emperor butterfly but they're probably not so accurate as I just coloured from (dim) memory. Keen Lepidopterists, please forgive me :oD
Just as the sentiment says, I decided to keep the tag simple. I stuck to a palette of three colours: dark grey, white and, of course, purple. I cut some foliage in dark grey and punched a few simple flowers in plain white card, adding pale green pearls in the centre.
I loved making it; I'm pleased with how it turned out and I hope Catherine will like it too. It would be great if you would visit us and join in the challenge too.
Lx
I would like to enter this tag into the challenges at:
Colouring Crazy Challenge - Pearls and Bling
Polkadoodles Challenge - Girly but no Pink
Simply Create Too - Keep it simple