Spring Sprang Sprung!

I made this card for a Justrite Friday Challenge #69, to create a card with spring colors and butterflies.

I am enamored with Justrite Stampers at the moment (and Spellbinder dies). Justrite is having a sale, retiring last year's collection, and well, I indulged myself with some new images and borders, including the one I used  in this card.

Spring Sprang Sprung!
Image from Just Rite Stampers' Plant a Little Love

I have been poking around the tutorials on Splitcoaststampers.com for some time now, learning everything as fast as I can. In this card, I used the technique in Beate's tutorial called Bleached out Images, in which you stamp and emboss the image on colored paper, and then bleach out and color (or not) in the lightened areas. I bleached out the flower, leaves and border in this Justrite image, and used my Copic markers to color it in.

Before I bleached out the image, I sponged on some color (to dim the green paper a bit). I usually mask my image when I sponge the background, but this time, I did not, figuring that I was going to bleach it out anyway. Interestingly, the green from the paper bleached out almost entirely, leaving a very light mint color behind. The ink I sponged on, however, remained in place to a greater degree, leaving behind a subtle but beautiful gradient. This time I ignored it and simply colored the image in, but I want to explore that effect. The shades of yellow and green were lovely.

I used Spellbinders' Standard Circles, Scalloped Circles, Lacy Circles and Fleur de Lis rectangles (two medium sized rectangles rest side by side here, with the gap between them covered by the central image) to make the layout. The solid-colored pink and green paper is from Recollections (Michaels), sponged with Memento ink to adjust the colors. The two patterned papers are from DCWV, Old World stack and Black Current stack respectively. I love how the polka dots make the image pop. It reminds me vaguely of Mary Engelbreit and all of her black and white stripes.

The little butterflies are Tibetan Silver beads, attached with glue-dots. I wrote a little about Tibetan Silver and attaching a charm to card stock in an earlier post.

It took me a long time, last night, to decide what I was going to do for the required butterfly element, and it was very late by the time I finished coloring my flowers. In the end, I gave up and went to bed without finishing my card. I had a meeting until 6 PM today, and I was hard pressed to get the thing assembled by the 8 PM deadline. I posted it at 7:56, no less, with both children doing their best to hinder me, saying, "Mommy what are you doing?" Mommy can I touch the butterfly?" "Mommy, I want to color." Not with my fancy pens you don't (don't get me wrong, they have *plenty* of markers). In any case, I made it. If I'd had another hour, I'd have added a small label with, "Spring Sprang Sprung!" in the lower left corner.

Thanks for looking!