All a Flutter

One of my favorite quilting techniques is Paula Nadelstern's Kaleidoscope technique, and although I've nowhere near her talent I've had a lot of fun with the technique....

and have long been thinking how to do this with paper.  So, inspired by the latest PaperArtsy challenge to use sprays, I decided to spritz up some brightly colored papers with a bunch of Dylusion and Distress Sprays.





Yummy, rich colors..... but now how to add further interest with stamping?

I've been admiring various projects using beautiful butterfly stamps, and as I have a few myself, I settled on that.  Imitating kaleidoscope patterns requires fairly symmetrical patterning, which most full-on images of  butterflies have.  I also was looking for something to alleviate a lot of fussy cutting, so I used those stamps with corresponding wafer dies to cut the images, such as the recent  butterfly stamp and die sets from Stampendous and Tim Holtz

And pretty soon I had myself a pile of butterflies ready to go!

I messed around with color and size placement for a bit....

as well as the conundrum of how to work within a rectangle, instead of a circle..... as I wanted this page in my journal.









I ended up deciding to cut some of the images to allow for more intricate piecing, and not using the purple at all as it really dulled the page down.

Here is what I ended up with, after affixing everything with matte medium in my favorite fine applicator, a tip picked up from the wonderful France Papillion:

I'll keep playing with this idea as I peruse my stamps for symmetrical images.  In the meantime, out of curiosity, I looked up the name for a group of butterflies:  "swarm" - doesn't seem appropriate; "rabble" - what the heck?  But hey, "kaleidoscope" and "flutter" - those work just fine, lol!!

I will be entering this into the "Use Bright Colors" challenge at Mixed Media World, the"Use Sprays" challenge at PaperArtsy, the "Things with Wings" challenge at Fashionable Stamping Challenges, and of course posting at Brenda's Visual Challenge #18.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and please leave a comment if you've time - I always love to hear what you think!  xx Lynn

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