Butterfly Card With Window And Vines

Using MTC, I cut the rectangle and vine in the white card base.  The butterflies and the rest of the plants are a Memory Box die. 

The die was cut several times then I cut it into segments and glued them onto the card front.

There are four embossed lines for a little added texture.

Kensington Branch Card

The base of this card is some corrugated white paper that I've had on hand for quite a while.  I wanted a white background for the pink and red layers but needed some texture.  The butterfly branch is a Memory Box die named Kensington Branch; I trimmed one branch off to fit and added some hot fix silver dots around the branch.

It's a little more elegant looking than it appears in the photo.  The Memory Box die has a lot of detail and more depth than what shows in the photo.

Kensington Branch Die

This is another Memory Box die.  I cut  it once from green card stock and once from a dark red and cut the butterflies off and mounted them onto the green.

Delicate Butterfly Arch Die

Dutch Paper Crafts is where I first saw this die from Memory Box.  They were doing a pre-order on several new dies.  This is the first time I've ordered from them and I was very pleased with their service!  My credit card was not charged until the item shipped and it took less time than I'd anticipated for the dies to arrive.
Mine arrived today and I had to play!

A Cuttlebug is the embossing/die cutter machine that I used.  This die is extremely intricate and, to be honest, I had a hard time getting it to cut cleanly.  My first attempt was using Stampin' Up solid cardstock.  It's too thick to cut cleanly with this die.  I then searched and found some lighter weight cardstock, added an extra shim of cardstock and it worked much better.

No where online did I find any complaints about Memory Box dies so I'm sure my difficulties are from my using a Cuttlebug and cardstock that was just too thick.

It seems that the trend in paper crafting is toward using dies rather than punches.  I've stayed away from dies because they're inconvenient for me to use.  My machine is across the room to use a die, my punches are within reach and I can cut multiples of images using my Cameo.  I admit that I'm basically lazy and like to do things quickly!

The small butterflies were done with a Martha Stewart punch.

I like the two different sizes of butterflies on this one.  Black and white cards are some of my favorites.