butterfly masquerade redux by lauren bergold

of course i was VERY proud and excited when pixie-in-chief kirsty vittetoe gave me the honor of putting together october's BLUE MOON kit; all the more so because this month commemorates pixie dust paperie's one year anniversary! i decided it would be fun to look back at all of my projects from this year and pick a few to "re-make" in honor of this milestone!

one of my favorite events this year was july's pixie group project, using theMIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM kit, for which we decorated some inexpensive butterfly masks i found at michaels. luckily, i saved a template from that project, so i was able to re-create the shape:

i used the soft damask pattern of melissa frances' flora paper as my base, and added a hand-cut swirl of vintage sheet music, which i made by tracing a chipboard flourish from my stash. i made the eyes of the mask a little more dramatic by tracing a "cat's eye" ink pad and using my exacto knife to cut them out.

i softly inked all of the edges, and carefully machine stitched around the eyes and the perimeter of the mask. not being a seamstress, i need a few "cheats" to pull off something like this: for one thing, it's vital to hand-crank the sewing machine on something this delicate; the foot pedal just goes TOO FAST! also, it's *MUCH* easier if you trace a very light pencil line about 1/8" in from the edge and use that to guide your needle.

then came the fun part: EMBELLISHING!!! i fussy-cut a few fairies and flowers fromgraphic 45 tags in the kit; (you get an entire 12x12" sheet, so there's plenty of choice!) i cut apart the last little bit of my prima crystal flourish and supplemented it with a bit of american crafts' pearl flourish leftover from the SUMMER OF LOVE kit. i cut apart the swirls and re-assembled them to fit the shape of the mask. finally i used a couple of elderly eyelets from my stash to line the holes at each side, through which i tied streamers of signature pixie dust seam binding.

et voila! there is no disguising my pride at the way this turned out. i hope you will be inspired to create something fanciful... once in a BLUE MOON! ♥♥♥

Kirsty's Note -

Ahhh..... magical and whimsical, what a GORGEOUS project, thanks Pixie Lauren!!!

At The Pixie Shop

Our anniversary kit "Blue Moon" is now available at The Pixie Shop

Get yours HERE!!!

*Anniversary Alert*

Pixie Dust Paperie is celebrating our 1st birthday, we appreciate your support over the past year and hope that you've had as much fun with the Pixie Kits as we had!

Besides our monthly GIVEAWAY (scroll down), we are having lots of special this month, do look out for it! Today's SPECIAL DEAL is

Buy any Pixie main kit and get a $40 gift certificate

$40, yes, that is like getting another kit totally FREE!!!

so what are you waiting for, shop now!!!

Note - last day for this offer, hurry!

Pixie October GIVEAWAY

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