Butterfly card

Today was just one of those days! I was very tired from the birthday party weekend, the daylight saving time change and meeting our son's bus in Boston after midnight (but it's great to have him home for a week). I was working on my swaps (there are some interesting things that I'll be able to share soon) and I decided to take a break to cut a card I designed last year shortly after I got the Graphically Speaking cartridge. It snowed again today and I really need some Spring! So I decided to cut a card with butterflies.



But the fates were against me! On my first attempt to cut the card, I did not preview the design and make a silly mistake...since I had added two elements inside the frame, I needed to "burp" the design and I had neglected to do that - you can see the result above!

So, remember, if you are welding inside a frame and add more than one element to the design inside the frame, you need to "burp" the design by selecting the frame and then clicking "copy," "delete," and "paste."



Here is a screen shot with a quick reminder about "burping."



So - I tried again. This time the design previewed fine and I was starting the cut when I remembered that I had been using multi cut for one of my swaps and I wanted to cancel the cut so I could turn off the multi cut option. I must have clicked the OK for Beyond Birthdays without inserting the cartridge in the midst of doing all this. I then turned off the multi cut and tried the cut.

This was my second error - once you skip a cartridge for a design you have to close and reopen Design Studio in order to cut that particular file again using all of the cartridges. So the cut produced two pairs of pretty welded butterflies but no card and no frame! (the photo was taken after I cut the cards with my trimmer).



The third time was the charm! I closed and reopened Design Studio, previewed the file and saw that it was correct, made sure multi cut was turned off and inserted each cartridge (Beyond Birthdays and Graphically Speaking) as the program asked for it.



Finally, I managed to cut the card I had designed! I love the look of the opening but it isn't very practical if you want to write inside the card. So I cut a piece of cardstock to fit - just covering a bit beyond the edges of the aperture.



Here is the card with the backing added - I used my Creative Memories Precision Point Adhesive to attach the insert to the card - it is perfect for jobs like this with all the delicate bits that need sticking down.



This photo shows the insert from the inside when I held it up to a strong light. I didn't have any opaque pink vellum on hand so this is just normal cardstock.



Above you can see the inside of the card. I inked the edges of the insert with a shimmery dark pink ink to help it blend in with the patterned paper. This was double sided paper with a pretty butterfly sketch pattern on the inside.

The card still needs some more detailing, and I will try to finish it up tomorrow. The lesson I learned? Crafting while tired can lead to many mistakes (so I am off to bed for a good night's sleep!) - I'll clean up the file and post it tomorrow too.