When I Worked For Wilna: Bows and Butterflies

Last week it was my privilege to appear over at the wonderful Wilna Furstenburg's iheartstudio. When Wilna asked if I'd like to do a Guest Post I was delighted: making pretty layouts with the artwork she produces is always a lot of fun and I couldn't wait to get started. Today it's my pleasure to be able to share my project here too. I hope you enjoy it. And if you visited me there, thank you! 

 I’ve long been a fan of iheartstudio; and when Wilna releases new designs I find them hard to resist! In part this is because she always makes sure that you don’t need any kind of a cutting machine to use the lovely images she creates. I’m a “trim it out with a pair of scissors” kind of girl; and I love how easy it is to download files from iheartstudio to cut out by hand. That’s how I made the page I’d like to show you today:

For this one I used Wilna’s May Flowers Collection, actually a part of her currently running year long workshop, Art2Heart but released separately as a taster. The flowers and butterflies are so pretty!

Once you have printed them out, you’ll see that there is a printed line to cut round. It couldn’t be easier. I don’t even use a special pair of scissors: mine came from a supermarket school supplies department. I cut quite quickly: slow down and think about it too much and that’s when the mistakes come!

So, with the cutting finished I started to make a background with some green acrylic paint and ink in two shades of blue. If you are hesitant about getting painty and messy, let me show you a little trick I sometimes use

I paint a few swipes onto a piece of card and then cut it out. This way I can try it against different backgrounds, I can put it through the typewriter, and I can stitch it down without having to think about my whole page buckling. Today, though, I put that one to one side (maybe for another butterflies and flowers page) and painted straight onto my cardstock.

I arranged my 6x4 photo of my daughter with a bough of flowers and some butterflies and played around, balancing up the colours round the page. I found some black rub ons to echo the flowers and add depth; and I made sure I got some contrast going by placing some on the paint and some on the white background. Then I thought about my final touch. To play up the prettiness and to add movement without overpowering the photo I decided on some tiny bows, with trailing ribbons, like wisps of hair falling from my daughter’s up do

I used a little bowmaker tool left over from my dolls clothes making days, but it's easy to make bows with a fork too.

But it’s easy to make bows with a simple fork, too

Lay ribbon across the fork from left to right

Lift the right hand end of the ribbon behind the fork and bring it to the front

Now push that right hand end through the middle prong of the fork

Up and over the same prong to the front

Pull it tight and tie in a knot. Slip it off the fork and arrange to your satisfaction

It’s easy to do; but if you have no fork to hand (maybe like me you scrapbook at the furthest end of the house from the kitchen!) you can simply use a paper piercer to make two holes in your cardstock, push the ribbon through from the back and tie the bow that way. Wilna’s butterflies and flowers are made for added bows! And I think the same idea would work very nicely on a card too.

I finished with my journaling and a stamped title of “Today” (stamp by Gossamer Blue)

I hope you enjoyed looking at my page  and maybe feel inspired to print, cut..and tie a bow. Or two. Or three…

This post originally appeared on iheartstudio