Natural Butterfly Card (& 5 Minute Chocolate Cake!)

Card time again! :D

I made this card for Hot Spot Challenge #1!  The challenge is "natural elements" - this kinda speaks for itself, so......here's my card incorporating natural elements:

I used a natural fibre type card stock for the background, and white cotton paper on top - it's the first time I'm using cotton paper and I think it looks lovely on cards!  Here's a close up of the different papers:

I just folded the cotton paper around the papers and glued it onto the back only - it's so fine and thin that I thought glueing it to the front of the card as well would make the glued areas visible. Also, instead of cutting the cotton paper at an angle, I drew a line with a paintbrush and water and just tore along the line, to give this pretty soft torn effect.

On top of the background card stock, I added gold card stock and some colour with a flowery themed scrapbook paper - the flowers also incorporating some natural element onto the card.

For the centre feature of the card, I spray painted small pieces of interesting curly bark from a tree in our garden, and glued a butterfly on top (not only does the butterfly itself symbolize nature, but it's also made from feathers which is another element from nature):

To embellish the card further, I made cute little flowers.  I punched out 3 mini flowers out of the same flowery scrapbook paper used on the card, pinned them together with a brad, and folded the petals upwards to add some 3D-ness.  This is the first time I'm making flowers like these (got the idea somewhere in blogland) and I'm really happy with how they turned out - very cute!  :)

But before I pinned them together, I pressed the back side of the flowers onto a gold ink pad, to add some colour, so that when the petals are folded upwards, you don't see any white underneath:

Then I was going to add some beige pearls, but finally settled on brown ones, as I thought the brown colour better represents nature in the form of earth/soil.

And of course I like to add a little something to decorate the inside of the card as well, so I stamped some butterflies in gold ink just on the right corners:

And a note for Making It With Meslyn Challenge Blog ladies - this card uses my following favourite things:  Butterflies and natural elements! :)

And then, one of the best inventions of the century....the 5 minute microwave single serving chocolate cake!

It's perfect for those late night chocolatey cakey cravings...and you most likely ALWAYS have these ingredients on hand!

Here's the recipe:

4 tbs     flour
4 tbs     sugar
2 tbs     cocoa powder
1           egg
3 tbs     milk
3 tbs     oil

*   Mix dry ingredients in large coffee mug (or any other microwavable dish really)
*   Add wet ingredients and mix well! (fork works great)
*   Microwave for 3 mins on high.
*   Wait for it too cool down (very important), and EAT!

:)

LINKY PARTIES linked to:

Saturday Mornings                                       A Little Lovely Blog
Scrappy Gifts                                                Just A Girl 
Tatertots & Jello                                           C.R.A.F.T.
Sumo's Sweet Stuff                                       It's A Blog Party
Texas Monkey                                              Mom's Crazy Cooking
Sew Chatty                                                   Sew Can Do
The DIY Show Off                                        Krafty Kat
The Girl Creative                                          Rook No. 17
Today's Creative Blog                                  Trendy Treehouse 
Free Pretty Things For You                          Vintage Wanna Bee

ENTERED into:

Hot Spot Challenge (Challenge #1)           Making It With Meslyn
Papertake Weekly                                   Sew Many Challenges #42