Seven Days of Bling: Day 4

Sue C., who is just full of fabulous questions, asked whether I start in the middle of filling in a large punched shape with bling or bling the edges first and then fill in toward the center. Yesterday's card is a good example of this.

With large shapes, I generally start somewhere off-center, so everything appears as random as possible, although I will say with the Christmas tree you'll see later this week, I started at the top, worked down through the center and then toward the edges. When the edges don't quite work out, I fill in with the tiniest rhinestones I have. A few times in this week-long extravaganza, I've had to color tiny clear bling with alcohol markers to fill in when I've run out of the right color.

That's a hazard of trying to use up your bling. Will you have enough to finish the whole project or run out mid-bling-fest and have wasted a bunch of pretty fake jewels?

It's as close as I get to risky behavior.

Fortunately, today's card showcases the very first shapes I blinged, and therefore we have lots of lovely rhinestones to choose from...before I started running out of some shades and sizes. It also showcases shapes that absolutely DO NOT follow the advice I just gave Sue C. at the beginning of this post. Each bling was carefully planned to be symmetrical and to vary the bling colors and sizes in a pleasing way that highlights details of the punched shape. There's nothing random about the butterfly and dragonfly.

I LOVED the results. LOVED. I'm shouting at you. LOVED.

I hope you love them, too.

The darker blue rhinestones are almost a Prussian blue and oh, so lovely! They ran out relatively quickly, however, which is sad, and I had no more after finishing this card and the bird card.

I'm going to need to add a Prussian blue Copic marker to be able to duplicate these beauties in the future. And this is how we get into so much trouble buying stuff. There's always something we need.

Always.

As you can see if you compare today's card to yesterday's, having dark, medium, and light shades of one color adds an ENORMOUS amount of interest to a bedazzled design. I just love the dragonfly and butterfly.

But I said that already.

Anyway, the bugs were so pretty I decided to use the lightest gray ink I had (Mama Elephant silver fox pigment ink) for the pretty swirl from Clearly Besotted's With a Flourish. The swirl anchors the design, bringing the three blue elements together with, well, a flourish.

Sorry. I couldn't help myself.

Note that the three blue elements are arranged in a visual triangle. Tomorrow we'll see a different arrangement for a purple dragonfly flying all by its lonesome.

And that's all I have to say about that. Hope you all had a great weekend!

Mercy, grace, peace, and love,
Susan

Supplies
stamps: Papertrey Birthday Basics, Clearly Besotted With a Flourish
paper: Papertrey white
ink: Mama Elephant silver fox, Archival cobalt
accessories: rhinestones, dragonfly and butterfly punches, glue