butterfly stationery holder

I have been looking for some much needed crafty inspiration these past few months. I wanted to take a class or two to try out some new techniques and play with new ideas. Last month, I signed up for (and was lucky enough to get one of the 20 spots) in Ronda Palazzari's Art of Pen Pals online class. This is a great class where you get matched up with a pen pal, create a monthy creative assignment and mail it along to your pal along with a letter. It was so great to receive my first letter and fun artwork from my pen pal in the mail the other day! 

Before the class started, Ronda showed us how to make this great stationery holder. I knew I wanted it to be something special that I would be able to keep, so I decorated it with some of my favorite Hero Arts stamps. 

The background was made with the butterflies from the Antique Engravings set stamped over the Old Letter Writing stamp. The butterflies were "painted" in by scribbling Distress Markers on a craft sheet and using them as paints with a waterbrush.

The wood flap? Made with my favorite Wood Background stamp-stamped with Frayed Burlap Distress Paint. 

Once the paint was dry, I went over it with Old Paper Distress Ink. I think it looks pretty wood-like!  

I decorated the insde with some tissue paper and a stamp from the My Favorite set :

This will be a great place to store letters I receive as part of the class, as well as a quick little set of notecards that I made.

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