Day 1 Beautiful Butterflies, Wildflowers and Weeds, and Grow Positive Thoughts

Good morning! Welcome to the first day of our August release inspiration hops!  Today we are showcasing my new set, Lisa Hetrick's Wildflowers and Weeds, and Hannah Drapinski's Grow Positive Thoughts! Be sure to comment along the way because there will be two $50 gift certificates up for grabs!  Winners will be announced a few days after hops...

Beautiful Butterflies is...out of stock, I'm sorry!  It will be back soon and I'll post that video I promised you shortly! We moved my firstborn son into his dorm this weekend so the only positive thing about running out so early is it bought me a little more time! 

Here is my little butterfly at age 3 with a butterfly on our front porch. Now he's 18. And almost 6'3". Unbelievable! Where did the time go? It's been such a blessing to have him in my life and I'll look forward to him drifting in and out during this next season... "Nothing gold can stay..."

For me, butterflies have always been so much more than beauty and change. To spot one seems so rare and special, for one to rest long enough to capture a photo magical, that to have one light on your hand allowing you to gaze at all the intricacies of their wings before flying away so lucky you should go buy a lottery ticket! They are stolen moments. It was such a privilege to draw and capture each of these, preserving them forever. I hope you feel the same creating with the set and adding that extra bit of wonder to your art.

For example, here are two cards I grabbed from my stash from a past hop and video (you may remember them if you watched, if not totally cool)...

And here are the same cards after adding a butterfly! Which would you want to send? Receive? I know, right? Serious level up!

Okay, now that's settled, on to new cards!

For this card, first I stamped the largest butterfly in Peach Bellini ink on Warm Glow cardstock, love all these images for subtle, elegant coordinating butterfly backgrounds. I used one of the Master Layouts 2 rectangle dies for my mat and ran one of the cap dies at the same time. Punch out the letters (which you'll save for another project), your mat die cut behind it will show through and really pop! Such a sharp tag!! I inked up just the YOU from the "lifting you up" greeting in the butterfly set to stamp next to the LOVE, and accented the center of the O with one of the smaller butterflies in the set.  Finish with one of the rainbow hearts and pop up your mat! Image is colored with alcohol markers and accented with glitter pen for sparkle. You'll see these LOVEly letters on a card in tomorrow's hop!

By the way, the caps dies are ALL amazing!  Click that link to see them all and add as you are able to your collection, you can thank me later! 

Again, I am so sorry if you missed out on purchasing this set on release day, it literally flew off the shelves Thursday night (please pardon the pun), but will be back in stock soon! Click the notify me button to get on the Beautiful Butterflies wait list and get an alert as soon as it's back! You will be seeing more butterflies inspo throughout our hop with the other sets and of course videos in the weeks to come to tide you over and get your ready to get busy, this is one of my favorite all time sets I have illustrated, I hope yours, too!

Next up is the wonderful Wildflowers and Weeds!

I was sure this wheel image would be very popular with our design team and sure to make wonderful scenes with it, (so unique but lots of applications), so I hoped I might come up with something a little different for this and grabbed the set after I'd been coloring all my stained glass butterfly panes, how cool would it be to color in the spaces between the spokes and intersections with rainbow colors!  I used the coordinating Wildflowers and Weeds die set, and to be completely honest, that flower is strategically placed because I accidentally colored the section opposite yellow *blue*, doh!!! I'd almost finished and didn't want to start over so here is another tip for the day: cover the boo boo with WHITE GEL PEN, let dry, then color with the marker you *meant* to use! This wouldn't have worked as well with a very large section, but I could fake it just having a bit peeking out from under the die cut, ha! We do what we can...

This next one I had to add one of my side view butterflies enjoying these lovely pansies! I used my butterfly dies (a few sets left!) plus one of the pansies from Lisa's coordinating Weeds and Wildflowers and Weeds die set again.  Cardstock is Barely There, Lipstick, and Lovely Lavender. Stamping is Obsidian, Plum Punch, Lovely Lavender, Wild Dandelion and Fresh Asparagus.  Images are stamped on Pure Luxury White and stitched die cut mat using Master Layouts 2 in GKD Barely There. I am down to small scraps of white only, but am loving this Barely There as my mat color with the lavender and lipstick! Greeting is from the new Incentive set Take Care. Spend more than $75 and get that adorable set for free!

Next we have Hannah's Grow Positive Thoughts set! This first card I stamped the woman onto Kraft cardstock and did some simple coloring on the flowers and leaves with colored pencils. Fel free to change up your position of the woman to change it up, go out of the box and off the card! Next I die cut some of my butterflies from Beautiful Butterflies and the coordinating dies to pop up over the flowers.  I thought coloring each side with completely different colors went so well with the sentiment about creating change, and the butterflies themselves of course, metamorphosis and all.) The affirmations Hannah included are just wonderful!

This next sample is going to date me a bit, I hope you recognize the inspiration! I wanted to try modifying the woman by cutting off the flowers (which I saved of course, for a flower card that will be in our Instagram hop later!) Just add a bright red mouth and you've got the beginnings of an iconic 80's album cover, fun square card to send to a friend who'd remember!  You couldn't go anywhere for a few years without seeing graphic art prints of beautiful women by Patrick Nagel, and I was pretty obsessed with Duran Duran!!

Anyway, even if you weren't a Durannie, I hope this opens your mind to different ways you might make this gorgeous lady for your own. Cardstock is Pure Luxury Passionate Pink, Lovely Lavender, Plum Punch, Black Onyx and White. I layered all the cardstock and used white and black gel pens to draw simple folds, and Lisa's *wheel die* to cut out a vinyl record from black cardstock to slip in! Write your note on the back...

Grow Positive Thoughts 

Now let's go see what else the team did with the new goodies, I myself can't wait! Shop all the new stuff and more here!

Gina K.

Melanie Muenchinger-Illustrator of Beautiful Butterflies, you are here!

Lisa Hetrick-Illustrator of Wild Flowers and Weeds

Hannah Drapinski-Illustrator of Grow Positive Thoughts

Arjita Singh

Beth Silaika

Donna Idlet

Karen Hightower

Mindy Eggen

Rema DeLeeuw

Sheri Gilson

Thanks for visiting today!