Butterfly Farm

Before I share my newest LO with you, I just want to tell everyone how lucky I am to have the amazing blog friends that I have!! Everyone is so nice to me.... and this week, two of them sent me gifts!!! I love gettting this kind of mail!!  LOL!! Over at the Paper Poppy Kit Co. Alphra had some fun contests during National Scrapbook Day and I won one!! She sent me these lovely buttons!! Thank you Alphra!! I can't wait to use them!!

And then.... my friend Judy was demonstrating the new gel pens with the cricut!! If any of you know Judy, you know how incredibly generous she is!! Well, she picked me from the comments that were left to receive these 2 brand new gel pen sets!! I love the cool things she was able to do with these pens and I can not wait to get some time to try them out myself!! Please stop by Judy's blog (Judy's Cardmaking and Papercrafts)and show her some love!! She is one of the nicest, kindest people you will meet!!

Now... on to my layout!! Stuck On U Sketches has another amazing sketch for you this week!! The sketch is from the very talented Liz Qualman and was so fun to work with! If you haven't had a chance yet, stop over at the Stuck On U Sketches blog and see what the design team did with this sketch!! AMAZING!!

These pictures are from a butterfly farm in St. Thomas. We visited it after a day at the beach... that explains the bathing suit and wet hair!! Lauren was very clever with her tricks to get a butterfly to stay on her hand... but it seemed to work!! She loved posing with the butterfly!!

The papers are all from my May kit from the Paper Poppy Kit Co.  Alphra did an amazing job of putting this kit together!! She added in some super fun embellies too!!

The butterfly is 2 chipboard butterflies that I covered with patterned paper an then inked the edges with blue ink. The top layer is the Prima butterfly stamp that came with the kit. I have to be honest... I love the stamp as long as I don't look at it too close!! The middle of the butterfly is a lady and it kind of freaks me out!! So... I covered the freaky lady up with pearls!! LOL!!! The mat behind Lauren's photo is actually the packaging that the chipboard butterflies came in. I added in some Prima flowers, random ribbon and black flourishes from my own stash. Everything else is in the kit!! If you want a kit of your own, you can find it HERE!!

And finally I want to thank Jenny over at Wee Memories!! Her challenge this week is to sew on your LO!! Me sew?!! Seriously?!! My dear mother gave me a sewing machine for Christmas.... one with just the basics, nothing fancy!! But that sewing machine has sat in it's box in the closet until today!! I finally got it out!! Of course my thread colors are limited since I am not a person who normally sews.... so I was stuck with an off white thread color. I started by stitching around the large piece of patterned paper. I know it doesn't show up in the photo but I really did it!! I even switched stitches in random places to add the little zig zag stitch!!! I am sooooo proud of myself!! I am such a big girl now!! But since that stitching did not show up well, I decided to be super brave and sew around the blue paper at the bottom of the layout!! I actually think it turned out pretty well for my first time!! Sometimes I just surprise myself!! LOL!!

Thanks for stopping by today! Have a great week and I will be back Friday with a new Frosted Designs layout.... the challenge next week is really fun so be sure to stop by Friday to find out more about it!!

Barb :)