Colour Challenge

I like challenging myself to use colour combinations that are outside my normal pallet... I find myself returning to my favourite colours over and over, but I'm often surprised by the creative treasures I discover when I decide to use some of the colours that don't automatically jump into my hands when I start looking through my card stock. My package of Urban Garden Designer Series Paper is a good example of that... when I got it I immediately created dozens of pretty cards and projects using the sides of the paper featuring the Kiwi Kiss/Baja Breeze/Not Quite Navy colour scheme, but left the pages featuring Basic Gray in the package. It's so silly, because using a neutral colour scheme can produce some very classy results... but the grays just don't pop into my head when I'm creating. To help remind me of the possibilities that gray can offer, I just purchased a package of the Neutrals cards stock along with two new ink pads: Going Gray and Sahara Sand. I also pulled out that Urban Garden DSP, and challenged myself to use it in place of a lighter colour in a card design. The result?

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I'm thrilled with the card... it's classy and beautiful, whimsical and pretty. I've used the Beautiful Butterflies Bigz die on the Big Shot to make the butterfly, and used Dimensionals to give the layered wings their 3D look. The verse and background butterflies, which are inked in VersaMark, are from the Dreams Du Jour stamp set. And... because I couldn't resist seeing what the card would have looked like in my "first instinct" colours, I made it again:

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Which do you like best? 

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