March Illustrator Blog Hop and Challenge

This month for our Gina K Illustrator Hop, Gina challenged us to use the new sets to create a card inspired by a favorite children's book. Well there are LOADS of wonderful tales to choose from, the hardest thing was just narrowing it down to one, the illustrations in my books growing up were my biggest inspiration to draw, plus a whole childhood of stories, oh my!

I could never name just one favorite, but my children loved the bright hand cut illustrations of Eric Carle and one of his books with a beautiful message is "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and it was very appropriate for my set this month, and I thought of a fun spin on some of the book's design elements to try, thank you Theresa for reminding me of this classic! ;) (that link has a very nice video of Eric Carle talking about the book and how it came together)

I did a plain white base with a side fold , just like the design of the board book we have. I kept the front simple and added the caterpillar from "A Year of Leaves" and punched holes along the bottom, like the chewed holes in the book as the caterpillar gets bigger, and bigger. The "A Beautiful Life" sentiment prompts you to open the card to finish reading...
and reveal this intricate looking pop up, very reminiscent of the book's final page, with the glorious pop out butterfly the caterpillar became! (Have you all read this book?) Although it is a very literal interpretation of the book, I think the design works very well as just a stand alone card!

To begin I folded a piece of card stock in half then trimmed out a large and small wing, one side of the butterfly, to make it symmetrical when opened. If you are interested I can add a template on my blog for this!

Next I stamped the " A Beautiful Life" butterfly all over it to create this pattern. At first I planned to do some masking , but then decided to just have them overlap, I like the look (and it was easier) it also gave some pretty overlapping opportunities to change the colors like holding different panes of colored glass up the light, see below.

Here it is colored with Copics. I did very little blending, just a rainbow of colors with a light and dark shade of each hue. I aslo added traced the veins in the wings with glitter pens, wish you could see how they sparkle in real life!

Then I scored the butterfly in the center and then in the middle on each remaining half, fold the body toward you (mountain fold) and then press the center of the wings back with the wing tips coming toward you (valley fold). Add adhesive just outside each of these two outside scores, line up the score in the middle of the butterfly with the score in the middle of your card, and press the butterfly down flat so the wings will attach. The wing tips will be free also. This fun design allows the butterfly to flap as you open and shut the card.

Here you can see it again, I added some little adhesive crystals for antennae into the card's middle.

I also made some little earrings and charm bracelet to go with! You can find these little crystal bracelets at Hobby Lobby for just a few dollars, already made, charm ready! Stamp the butterfly several times in Black Stazon onto Polyshrink, color the BACK side with Copics (so as not to smear the ink) cut them out, and punch a hole to add the jump ring.

After adding the jump ring, hold the ring with a stylus tip or tweezers and heat to shrink. I love the size this particular image shrinks down to, so sweet, not too small not too big, just right for little charms and the little delicate details still show up so nicely.

If you haven't already, stop
by GinaK's Blog for more information on tonight's Challenge Hop

Upload your creation to STV using any of the the following stamp sets with the keyword APRILBOOK.

• Challenge: Choose favorite children's book and make a project inspired by the book. Include photo of book along with why you chose it and how it inspired your project.


• Requirement: use any of these March Release stamp set: A Beautiful Life, By Your Side, Fairy Tales, Friends, Happy Spring, Nana's Needlework, Nana's Needlework Sentiments, Sending Sunshine, Spring Mix, Spring Has Sprung. You can enter more than once, but each entry needs to be with a different stamp set!


• Deadline: Monday, April 12th at 8 pm


• Prize: CenterStage Spotlight Designer for April (receives entire April release!)

To keep the inspiration going, check out these GinaK Designer's joining in on the hop tonight:

• Jessica Fick


• Nina Brackett


• Tami Mayberry


• Melanie Muenchinger (you are here! thanks for visiting!)


• Theresa Momber


• Carolyn King


• Cathy Tidwell


• Lee Murphy


• Erika Martin
• Emily Giovani


• Jennie Harper *March CSS Guest Designer Winner*