PaperTrey Ink Blog Hop Card Project!

I'll try posting the pictures at 5:00 CDT. Blogger is giving me an error right now. Here's the text:

Hi, everyone. I'm participating in a contest tonight called a "blog hop" (which reminds me a little of pub crawls in college but without the hangover) at the PaperTrey Ink forum. I've never done a contest before, but it sounded like fun. First, you had to register and then 25 random entries were chosen for tonight's blog hop (no talent was required :)). Luckily, I was picked 25th of the 25 random names, so I'm happy to be able to participate! It's very exciting, though I'm sure I won't win with all the talented people on the PTI board. I really only make cards when I'm done scrapping and before I put all the gear away/throw the scraps. The challenge was to use a swatch sheet of the April PP, along with one or more PTI products. Unfortunately, I'd purchased both the previous sets of PP in both sizes, but not this month. But I did get the April cardstock and ribbon (too yummy!). As soon as I saw the swatches, I thought of doing a paper piecing project, which I'd never done before. I wanted to find a giraffe design, but I could not get the dingbat to print out large enough. So I looked at the paper designs again and decided to go with a Monarch butterfly. I printed the butterfly dingbat in brown ink on white cardstock. Because I don't have a lightbox, I then cut out each piece from the template, traced it on the swatch sheet, cut it out, inked it up, ran it through the Xyron X and then adhered. Then repeat 25 more times (yes, there are a total of 26 paper piecings on the card). I think my little Cutterbee scissors were smokin' at the end! I printed the swatches out on both white and ivory cardstock. I used the print on white for the top of the butterfly and the print on ivory for the bottom. It gives it a subtle color gradiation from top to bottom. I then printed a mirror image and colored it with 4 colors for Versamagic chalk ink and 4 Zig markers (Copics are on my wish list). Then I cut out the pieced imaged and adhered it with pop dots over the colored image. I then matted it on PTI Summer Sunrise cs and then on a Bazzill brown. I also liked the look of the lined envelopes I'd seen on Taylor Van Bruggen's blog, so I printed the butterfly dingbat image again over the swatch sheet and adhered it inside the envelope. It has a pretty cool, graphic look. I liked pairing a traditional-looking card with something bold and fun! I also made 4 more cards with the supplies out that you can see below. Anyway, I plan to give this card to my Grandma for her May 6th birthday. You can't give a card you spent 4 hours making to just anyone! Heehee...
Supplies for contest card: PTI swatch sheets printed on Wausau white and Wausau ivory cs (both 65#), butterfly dingbat downloaded online, Summer Sunrise cs, brown Bazzill cs, 4 Zig markers and 4 Versamagic chalk inks, 1 PTI envelope
Supplies added to other cards: PTI Lemon Tart cs, PTI Summer Sunrise and Lemon Tart ribbon, and "Birthday wishes" sentiment from PTI Butterfly Kisses stamp set.
Thanks for looking!
Kristen