If Your Dreams by Gill Humphrey

Several craft companies have made papers featuring windows so when I saw the back of the front paper from the Craft O'Clock 6 x 6 Hummingbird Song Papers I knew that I had to have a play with them. Thankfully as a surgeon I am very happy to cut with a scalpel but they are actually just as easy to cut out with a pair of scissors. I cut out lots of the frames ensuring that I had a good mix of colours and sizes and laid them out on my craft desk until I had a pattern of overlapping frames that I liked.

The base piece of my project is a That's Crafty! MDF Arch Upright which I covered with a neutral patterned paper from the Craft O'Clock 12 x12 Hummingbird Song Papers adhering the paper in place with That's Crafty! Glue. Once thoroughly dry I cut around the edge using my trusty craft knife and then sanded back the edges to neaten them up.

I knew I wanted to add some more detail to the background and did this firstly by adding a layer of That's Crafty! Texture Paste through a Finnabair Stencil. Once this was dry I free hand stamped some script (any stamp with script in it will work for this so use what is in your stash or check out the That's Crafty! Texture Stamp 3 which has lots of images suitable for adding interest to your backgrounds). 

I stamped my butterflies on to left over pieces of paper using an old Finnabair stamp set from my stash but Finnabair Stamp Set Don't Forget to Fly and Rust and Dust have very similar images.I then fussy cut out the images layering two of the bigger ones on top of each other and gently curling the wings of the smaller ones.

Having prepared my pieces I then adhered my frame collage in place using a combination of that's crafty glue and foam pads to give depth to the piece. Finally I glued my butterflies in place.