Taking something I disliked and turning it into something loved

I will admit that I am a hoarder. Why else would I keep designer paper for years that I hated. I have had this paper for about 9 years. I like the colors but the design just doesn't fit my style. So it has been sitting in a drawer of paper waiting. It must have been hard waiting that long to be used, especially when some of friends got picked. Today for the SCS sketch challenge, SC480 I knew I wanted to faux barn board technique to look like a wooden fence as a back drop for my poppies. I wanted a little bit of color and design showing through and I wasn't too particular about it, so I pulled this paper out and added shoe polish, glue and paint.

 Well, I really liked how the end result turned out. In fact you could say I loved it. I loved it so  much that I really didn't want to cover it up. So for the small panel in the sketch I used a piece of vellum with the word "love" printed on it. That way you can still see the faux barn board behind it. I did paper tole on my poppies. I water colored them and cut them out. I made a poppy card yesterday and put a butterfly on it. Today I took the scraps from that butterfly, (the left wings) and made another butterfly for this card.

 Here is a close up so you can see the dimension of the butterfly and the poppies. You can also see the center of the big poppy. I did burned glue for the center. There is texture that makes it look almost real.

 

This is the card I made yesterday with the same set using the colors for the SCS color challenge.