I chose to feature the mulberry paper faux batik technique and used the small dragonfly from the kit as my "batiked" image. After stamping and embossing the image, I sprtzed the mulberry paper with three shades of spray die ink - tangerine, turquoise, and gold, which had gold shimmers in it.
Because I'm lazy and impatient, I elected to use my heat tool to dry the mulberry paper, and because the heat tool was out and hot, I thought i'd try to overheat the embossing - which is what creates the batik effect - using a folded piece of thick cardstock and the heat tool. This, surprisingly, worked pretty well, but I decided to follow up with the iron just because.
The mulberry paper stuck to the cardstock and tore in a few places. I either chose to not use the parts that got torn or fixed the tear as I stuck it onto the background. You can't even tell there was a problem. (I don't think the fix would have worked on different papers, though; what provided the camouflage were the fibers in the paper.)
To make the background paper, I spritzed more of the die ink onto cardstock, partially drying each layer before adding the next one so the colors didn't muddy too much.
I'm very pleased with the results. Pretty sure you're going to see one or two more of these beauties before it's all said and done!
Apparently have a fetish for dragonflies. They're all over the place!
But to redeem myself, I also created this simple 4.75" x 4.75" note card. I stamped the leaves on a separate panel and colored them with Copics. Then, using mounting tape, I added one of the flowers from the same paper as the card on the left. I also added in some specks for fun, I used mounting tape to attach the slightly smaller panel with the flower on it to the cardbase.
I like the simple card even though it might look too plain. I recognize that sometimes I throw too much onto a card. (Yeah, probably that dragonfly thank you card, in fact.) More than once I've had to stop to think that the kind of cards papercrafters make are not what most people experience. Maybe a little less is actually more in some cases!