WISHING YOU WELL

This card was so much fun to make and came together so easily and well. 

I love the looks of a tent topper card, especially when you have a precious focal point that you want to call even more attention to by raising it up just a little bit.

The black and white butterfly was punched with the Butterfly Duet Punch (page 35 of the Occasions Catalog). The butterfly itself was part of a 12 x 12 sheet of Designer Series Paper called Botanical Butterfly, a pack of DSP that you can get for free with a $50 purchase during Sale-A-Bration, which runs through March 31. You can see this exquisite paper on page 9 of the original Sale-A-Bration brochure.

If you look at the swatches of the paper on page 9, you will see the sheet that I used fifth from the right. Can you see that the butterflies are fluttering randomly across the white background? In order to punch out a single butterfly, simply cut freely around it with Paper Snips, then do your punching. That is the best way to preserve as many of the butterflies on the sheet without punching into them.

The stamp for the sentiment comes from the Wishing You Well stamp set which has been carried over from the Holiday Catalog. Yay for that! I love that set.

Do you have any idea how I got that cool bi-colored embossed butterfly background for the card? Easy! Before embossing the square of Cherry Cobbler cardstock inside the butterfly embossing folder (retired -- SOB!), rub black ink directly from the pad onto the inside of the embossing folder that has the writing on it. Be sure to ink it up well and evenly. Carefully lay your cardstock where you want it on the inked up folder and run it through the Big Shot. Voila!! Gorgeousness!

IMPORTANT: Rinse off the embossing folder as soon as you finish with it. The black ink will stain the plastic a bit, but no worries -- it won't affect subsequent embossing.

The 3" x 3" card is diminutive in its size, making it a precious little treasure. Below I have it standing in front of a classic-sized card, measuring 5 1/2" x 4 1/4" in Pool Party to compare the sizes. Pictured alone in the previous photos, it was impossible to comprehend the small scale of the card.

In the next photo, I have positioned the card alongside the regular card. This gives you almost a better perspective of the size difference.

The feature that makes this a tent topper card is the circle with the butterfly that extends a bit beyond the top of the card. 

The circle on which the butterfly landed is made with the Stitched Shapes Framelits, the dies that I think I reach for the most often of any set of dies I've ever had. Versatile and wonderful! 

Unfortunately, I didn't notice this when I was taking the photos, but I see now that his left antenna is tucked behind his left wing. The antennae are made of a black cord that was double knotted and attached to the back of his head with a glue dot. I used a Mini Stampin' Dimensional to attach the butterfly to the circle, while the circle is attached to the front of the card flat -- no Dimensionals.

One more unfortunate thing that I noticed that doesn't show up as I'm scrolling through this post is that the red portion of the card is mounted onto a 3" x 6" piece of Whisper White cardstock folded in half. This last photo shows it a bit, but you can get more of a sense of the true card by going back to the fourth photo in which I have the little card positioned in front of the standard sized card. Where it overlaps the Pool Party card, you can see the margin of white.Imagine that white surrounding the whole card, except for the circle portion.

Butterfly

Smiles.