Butterfly Love

It's June so do you know what that means? It means we have another theme from the gang over at Art Journal Journey! The lovely Mia from Craftartista is the guest host who has chosen the theme BUTTERFLIES! 

I LOVE BUTTERFLIES!

Butterflies are so very symbolic for me. They represent new growth, new beginnings, transformation. They represent the complete and utter destruction of who I once was only to emerge a newer and freer version of myself. They represent the fleeting moments of beauty in my life. They represent the struggle, the unknown, the dissolution of what was and the creation of a new way of existing in the world and so much more. So I love, love, love this theme so much. 

Of course, if you've read any of my blog at all you know I'm also obsessed with digistamps and I just so happened to have these two butterfly ones already printed out on my copic blending paper ready and waiting to go before I even knew this month's theme. So what better chance to use them than this, amiright?!

I started with some of the red tones in the copic range to colour in the roses and loved the colours so much I added a bit to the other flutter as well.

From there I wanted to add some bright yellow to help the rose one pop.

I decided black was just a little too dark so I just went with dark purples for the outline sections and then voila! Two pretty copic coloured digi butterfly stamps to add to a journal spread!

I went flipping through the journal I'm currently working in to see if there was an old spread I wanted to cover up but it seems I've covered all the ones I want to cover, for now. I did find this palette page though, you know, the page where you clean off and lay down the excess products from another page?

So from there I filled in the white spots of the page and gesso'd over the top of it. I added some normal ink stamps and this is why I love digistamps over these because no matter how much I ink them up or press them down, they just don't give me the nice crisp lines I love so much. 

I decided it was time to use some of my Lumiere's before they all dry up in their little pots and seeing as I was doing butterflies I thought why not do a little garden border thing. I started with the vines and then began to build up the flowers and add dots, dots and more dots because dots are awesome.

Once I had put enough petal layers on the flowers I got out my irRESISTible inks and gave them a bit of an outline and some more swirls n curls n dots.

Then I added one of the digistamp girls from The Paper Shelter and glued in the butterflies.

Then, as I do, I darkened the edges, added a pithy quote that feels really relevant to my life right now as I step into being an art therapist and sharing myself with the world, added a bunch more dots because DOTS! Then called it done.

No doubt there will be more butterfly-themed spreads through the month but I'm pretty darn happy with the first one for the month and I ask you, is there something you are avoiding that might be holding you back? Time to unfurl your wings and fly!