Butterfly Card from A Child's Year

While I was away last week, I was looking at the butterfly card on the A Child's Year cartridge.  (Here is a LINK to that post).

I thought that it looked too delicate to send as a card and I decided to create a shadow layer and place them both on a standard card for stability.

Here is the butterfly card that I cut with Design Studio.  It is slightly altered from the standard cut that is made when the size is set to 5 1/2"  (of course I also eliminated the tick marks for scoring the fold!).

I cut the card in patterned glitter cardstock from the DCWV Citrus stack.  Even though the paper is only partially glittered, I used multi cut 2 to be sure that the cut would be finished cleanly.

When I looked at the cut in Design Studio I was worried about the delicacy of the "legs" of the butterfly.  The card will stand by itself but I still think the thin places could easily be damaged.

I decided the blackout layer behind the head was not needed with the heavier cardstock.  One option would be to join the butterfly and the base card only at the top so the butterfly could be lifted to reveal an additional message.

For this first card trial, I decided to adhere the butterfly to the card base.  The cardstock for the base is also from the Citrus Stack and is cut to standard A2 size (8 1/2 x 5 1/2 folded to 5 1/5 x 4 1/4 inches).  I outlined the butterfly with a metallic pen after it was adhered to the card.

A plain sentiment stamp would suffer in contrast to the glitter paper, so I decided to stamp and heat emboss the "Thinking of You" in the lower right corner.

I used this metallic green embossing powder called ZING by American Crafts.  It is very easy to work with and coordinates well with the glitter cardstock.

There was no layering option for the card and I chose to keep it very simple.  I might experiment with designing and cutting a body shape to add to the card.  The card has a butterfly on both the front and the back which makes it more interesting.

For just a little added detail, I used two medium pearls from Creative Charms to make the butterfly "eyes."

Soon this card will be on the way to someone who needs a bit of cheering up.  When I have a chance, I will try some more variations.  I think the card options on A Child's Year are yet another reason to have this cartridge on your "Cricut Top Ten" list.