QUILTED? STAINED GLASS?

Do you remember this beautiful butterfly stamp that is now retired? (boo hoo!) It was so perfect for so many techniques. So perfect. I used it so frequently. And, as always, since I am still in love with it, I will continue to use it whenever I feel like it. Retired or not.

This card shows one of the techniques for which it is perfectly suited. And with such striking results! 

I don't know if it more resembles applique quilting or pieced quilting or stained glass? Or none of them. Fairly time consuming, I think the end result is beautiful.

Even though it is definitely time consuming and exacting, it is fairly simple to do. But only if you enjoy fussy cutting. Because that is basically what this butterfly is all about.

To start, I stamped the butterfly image on a piece of Whisper White cardstock. The next step was to go through my stash of Designer Series Papers to come up with a varied palette of colors and designs that work well together.

Since there are nine fairly mirror image sections in the butterfly, I then stamped the butterfly on nine separate pieces of Designer Series Paper. 

Then the work -- and figuring out -- began. I started with the mirrored section on the very bottom of the butterfly. Since I wanted a bit of that Calypso Coral color in that area and my stamped butterfly on that DSP had it just in this mirrored section, I chose to start with that design. Cutting out the two matching sections, I then adhered them to the original stamped butterfly where they belong. 

Working up from those two pieces, I gradually made my way to the top of the butterfly, until he was completed.

This was my first time doing something like this, so I wasn't sure just how neat I needed to be in my cutting. And once I was finished piecing the butterfly together, I discovered that, no matter how careful I was, the lines did not mesh well.

Instead of giving up at this point, because it really was not a neat looking butterfly, I persevered. It had been quite a bit of work so far, so I couldn't just throw it away. I grabbed a dark black pen and redrew the lines of the butterfly so the cut out pieces and the stamped butterfly melded seamlessly.

A little word of advice for you when you are working on a piece that you don't know what you'll be doing with it once your experiment is finished: I always start something like this on a quarter sheet of Whisper White cardstock. This size gives you a variety of choices when it comes to finishing it. 

Since the butterfly was so decorative on its own, I wanted to preserve that, so opted to die cut it with one of the Stitched Rectangles dies on page 183 of the Annual Catalog. The faux stitching around the perimeter gave the perfect finish to it. I then popped the panel up on a piece of Designer Series Paper from the past that incorporated some of the same colors I'd used in the butterfly.

If you want a stunning piece -- albeit a little labor intensive -- this is a good technique for you to try. Look for a stamp that has divided sections such as this butterfly possesses.

With the stamped pieces of DSP I have left over from this project, I could make eight more of these. Should I? Nah. Not for now, at least.

Pieced

Smiles.