Black is back

Its so easy to make something eye-catching if you choose black, so the challenge I'm hosting at Opus Gluei (starts Sunday March 22) is all about using my favourite colour and another of your choice.  I refuse to enter into conversations about how black isn't a colour, I KNOW that, but humour me.

Inspired by an artwork given to me last year, I played around with a butterfly punch and used up lots of tiny pieces of "just big enough to keep" paper scraps lurking in corners of my work bench.  Once I started, the project assumed a life of its own and I made several cards in different shades.  Inside each one is a lighter piece of paper on which to write, and another butterfly.  Here's what my work bench looked like...

and here's one all by itself....

and this is the inside of one...

I like the look of the raised wings, despite that meaning applying many many tiny pieces of double-sided tape.  I'm thinking this could be adapted to be framed, so I'm off to Ikea to buy a box frame or two and experiment.  Is it too early for Christmas?

Inspired by Irish....

...which is all green to me.

I have a very empty store of cards in my come-in-handy folder so I have been inspired to make a collection of green ones.  

There are so many different shades of green, and my very favorite has a hint of blue, hence this first card which uses some patterned and some embossed card stock and some cut-outs from Kaisercraft.

The next one is for a friend who just loves to move her furniture around and redecorate.  I have lots of twine left over from some Christmas crafting and I think it goes quite well with the tracery on the green paper.  The vase is from a TE stamp set, embossed with glossy black, and the flower and chest of drawers were lying in the scraps tray.

....and finally a salute to St Patrick's Day which falls on March 17th, the birthday of one of my grandmothers.  The clover is made from 4 heart shaped scraps, and it DOES say Good Luck too, but I should have used the glittery gold embossing dust instead of this one.

There's an Irish challenge over at Opus Gluei this week....these will be featured there, and I wonder what the others have created?