Crop Chocolate masking challenge from sketch

If you are looking for the Unity Friends with Flair blog hop, please look at the post below.

This week's challenge on the cropchocolate.com site is 2-fold.  We're to use a sketch by Dee Dee Catron, and we're to use a masking technique.  Masking is not new to me, but it's just been the past few months that I've been diving into the world of sketches.  At first, I followed the sketches quite literally.  As I get more comfortable using them, I find myself deviating from them quite a bit, using just some of the sketch as my starting point and seeing where it takes me. 

Here's Dee Dee's sketch

And, here's my take on it.  I chose to use the circle idea, substituting butterflies instead.  And, I stuck with one picture as the sketch did.  It was a rainy day when I took the pictures, so it's hard to see here, but there is a doily behind the year and floral clump.  That is how I chose to interpret the right side of Dee Dee's sketch.  I used Echo Park This and That Charming, Echo Park Note to Self and the masked butterflies are on a piece of Close To My Heart script paper form the Lucy collection.  Flowers were cut from the CTMH Art Philosophy cartridge at 2 and 2 1/2 inches.  Leaves are a Spellbinders die.  Butterflies and spray ink are Studio Calico.  The "spring" letters are white Thickers that I inked.  The year are stickers from the This and That Charming 12x12 paper pack. The 2 border pieces were cut from the Elegant Edges Cricut cartridge.

This is a close up of the masking.  I used the chipboard butterflies as my masks.  I first used Mister Hueys spray ink.  I didn't think they were quite distinctive enough after the mist dried, so I then added several shades of Tim Holtz distress ink  around the butterflies to give them some more definition.

This is a closeup of the floral cluster and a butterfly that is inked.

Hope you like it.  I sure had fun getting inky making it!