Butterfly Altered Notebook – Everything’s Coming Up Lilac and Lavender

This little altered notebook represents the final August birthday related item I had to make and I’m so relieved to have completed them all. This is not because I didn’t enjoy doing it but because other things got in the way and I felt like I was playing catch-up all month.

The Finished Notebook

 

Which came first the notebook or the card?  Honestly I have no idea, all I could think about was these lavender butterflies and what could I put them on.  Turns out I could put them on EVERYTHING!  As I said in the other post, I really liked how the butterflies in this art journal project turned out so I wanted to make something else using the same dies.  This is the result of that experiment!

The Process

I wanted to stick to a lavender/ lilac colour palette with maybe some pink thrown into the mix, but the cover of this notebook i intended to use was black, so first I gave it a couple of coats of white gesso, and once that was dry I applied a layer of Lavender Metallique paint to it and left that to dry.  Then I collaged some of the butterflies from the Finnabair Flutter tissue paper on to the outside cover – I loved that big butterfly at the bottom of the cover – and left it to dry again. Once that was dry I stamped some small butterflies and sentiments on to the cover and started to think about a stencil to put on the front.  I went through my collection and found this one from TCW that is just perfect.  I actually forgot I even had this one and here it is, being exactly what i wanted!  I applied some paper texture paste through this gorgeous stencil and this time I had to leave it to dry overnight as it was already late and I wanted to make sure it was completely dry before continuing.

Next morning, I applied some liquid acrylics to the notebook front and back and allowed them to spread and run down the page and around the edges.  I then did the same thing with the Unicorn Hair paint which added a subtle shimmer to the cover.  More drying time followed by adding some black and white splatters to the covers, before adding the butterflies to the cover.

These butterflies were made with the same dies as the matching card but before diecutting them, I glued the papers onto to some chipboard and then ran them through the big shot.  I attached them to the notebook cover using 3D gel, then applied some purple glass glitter to all the places where the 3D gel was showing, and left it for a few hours to dry completely.  I then went over everything with some matte gel to give it all some extra protection.

 

Final Thoughts

I love the colour palette, and I love the butterflies and how 3D they are. and I really love this tissue paper with the huge butterflies.  I will have to stop using it for everything and use something else instead soon but I just can’t help myself lol.  What I did not like so much was that the dye started to come off the glitter when it touched the mediums, that was a bit disappointing but luckily did not affect the project too much. Oh and you might be wondering what that gorgeous white paper with the butterflies is in the background?  Well stay tuned for the next post and I’ll tell you!

I was inspired by Art Daily Cafe’s Mood Board for August because I love this colour, it’s one of my favourite go-to colours.  Is this my inner landscape?  Probably, but also it reminds me of my garden landscape, butterflies, wildflowers, a Buddleia (butterfly bush) which is guess what colour?  Yes lavender, and this year we have been graced with the presence of so many beautiful butterflies.

PROJECT RECIPE:
Clear Gesso
Liquid Acrylics – purple
Distress Archival Ink – Black Soot
Black and White paint splatters
Metallique paint – Unicorn Hair
Sizzix Tattered Butterflies, Winged Beauties
Prima papers including Moon Child and papers from my stash
Finnabair stamps
Chipboard
Purple glass glitter
3D Matte Gel
Matte Gel