I never knew being distressed could be so much fun.

Firstly a big thank you to everyone who commented on my last two posts. I have only recently started using distressing techniques on my cards, and your lovely comments have given me confidence to use the techniques on a card I have been asked to make by a friend. I would normally have a brief for cards that I make to order but in this instance I was given a free reign, it just needed to be pretty and feminine. So here is what I came up with.

I started with the large butterfly as my focus for the design, it is one of the Papermainia felt butterflies and when working on a previous project I had drawn along the felt with stickles glitter glue. I liked the effect so much that I did this with several of the butterflies in the pack so this one was ready prepared. It does call for a  very steady hand and they take about twenty four hours to fully dry if anyone decides to give a go.

I used a cotton wool pad to colour the doily from the Wild Orchid range with ink from the Tim Holtz Distress range, I chose antique linen as I didn't want the doily to be too dark I just wanted to remove the stark whiteness. The butterfly was then stuck centrally on the doily using pinflair gel glue and left to one side to dry.

I then made a start on the background for the design, using papermania colour capsule papers from a collection I brought in my local craft shop I chose the double sided pink paper and chose to use the reverse as this had a lovely subtle marbled effect. having torn the edges, I used 'tattered rose' and 'antique linen' distress inks to get the effect I wanted. I tore a strip of velum with a silver script design, and an off cut of turquoise card with a foiled motif which was left from a previous project and again the edged were inked with 'antique linen'.

The tags were from the lovely '5th Avenue' range by Melissa Frances which I treated myself  to this week, and again they were aged using the 'antique linen'. The lace, ribbon, self adhesive pearls and peel off were from my stash, and the roses and leaves are from Wild Orchid. To make the roses look older I gently squeezed the petals together and rubbed the edges of the petals with 'tattered rose' ink.

Whilst I was waiting for all the ink to dry so it wouldn't smudge everywhere, mainly all over me, I sat doodling some butterflies on some scraps of parchment my intention being to just drop them in my embellishment box when I had finished for use on future projects. However one butterfly made a bid for freedom and escaped the embellishment box. I found it lying on my craft table as I was putting this design together so I decided to use it.

Once all the papers were dried I layered the silver script paper over the pink paper and wrapped the lace and cream ribbon around one edge, before sticking the resulting panel to the base card. I then added the turquoise layer and the doily backed butterfly.

A greeting was added to the smaller of the two tags and this was then set at an angle on top of the larger tag. I filled the space at the bottom of the larger of the tag by creating two swirls from a strip of self adhesive pink pearls. and used glue gel to stick the tag in the corner of the card. I tied a bow in the pale blue organza ribbon   using a bow maker but it looked lost, to thicken the bow up a little I used a double length of ribbon and retied it. once I had teased it out a bit I stuck it to the top of the tags to cover the holes.

The finishing touches were to add the pearl swirls to the main card and the flowers. I am quite pleased with the result. However I don't want to just keep using the same technique so I am off to have a think about a design for a man's card now.

I have entered this card into the following challenges....
 http://pennyschallenges.blogspot.com  birthday
http://trimmiescraftchallenge.blogspot.com butterflies
http://craftycatzweeklychallenge.blogspot.com tags
http://paperplaychallenges.blogspot.com things with wings