So the big clear out began yesterday and didn’t take very long for us to fill a skip with all our junk. Unfortunately, we only managed to clear stuff from the garage, but it’s a start. Some things were hard to get rid of and many things evoked some very happy memories. There was also a lot of stuff that we wondered why on earth we had hung on to it. Oh and there was a dead mouse. Fortunately, I had retreated inside to make a cup of tea when that joy was discovered.

On to today’s project. It’s week two of the new challenge over at Anything But A Card where the theme is balance. This is the inspiration photo’and here’s my Design Team piece:

Have you notice how butterflies have made a major comeback at the start of the year?! I chose butterflies as their presence indicates that nature is balanced. Originally I was going to alter a spool but found some slate pieces and decided to use those instead.

I layered up the slate pieces and used glue gel to hold them together – hot glue doesn’t work very well on this type of material. I tucked in some pieces of white Icelandic moss and then whitewashed the lot with white acrylic paint. I also white washed some miniature roses.

The butterflies were stamped in black on to coconut white card. The stamps are by Hero Arts. I then scrunched up some white muslin, secured it in the centre with wire and the hot glued it to the back of the butterflies. My intention was to soften the look of the piece.

The larger butterfly is attached to some silver jewellery wire.

I did add the word balanced but it didn’t look quite right and made the piece look.. er… unbalanced!

Please do take time to buzz over to Anything But A Card  and take a look at what the other Design Team members have been up to, there are some amazing projects. Of course we’d love it if you would share your projects too – there’s two more weeks left so there’s plenty of time.

Thanks for buzzing by,