Hearts Butterfly for Allsorts Birthday Challenge (and a few more Vacation Photos- Verona)

Hello everyone, a new theme at Allsorts challenge is starting today and Lynn is hosting this special challenge as it's Allsorts' 17th birthday. We are celebrating with many prizes from Lavinia, Buddly Crafts, Art Impressions, Highlight Crafts  and there are also some goodie bags from the Allsorts prize box. The challenge runs for 2 weeks and our theme is simply Anything Goes.

Something a bit different from me today as I don't normally use die cuts as focal points but surprisingly I do love how this turned out.

The star of the card is the gorgeous hearts butterfly die by Penny Black available from Buddly Crafts if you are in the UK and several retailers in the US.

I cut the butterfly from white cardstock then used Kitsch Flamingo Distress Oxide ink and a blender for color. As you can see, with this die you will get lots of little hearts. I saved them all and added 4 to the card as embellishments. On the background I used an old Tim Holtz mini tile stencil and the same pink ink. The large postage die cut was done with Penny Black's Posted, also available at Buddly Crafts in the UK or several retailers in the the US such as scrapbook.com. 

On the background I used a script stamp from Tracy Evans stamp set Magnolia. A button with some twine was used as another embellishment. 

Challenges I am linking up with:

• A Cut Above - Die Cut Challenge Blog - Die Cuts
• Craft Rocket Challenges - Not Square
• Crafting from the Art Challenge - AG
• Crafting Happiness Challenges - AG
• Crazy is our fame - STENCILS are our game! - Stencils
• DL.ART Thankful Thursday - AG
• Dragonfly Dreams - Die Cuts
• Girlz Creative Crafts - Dies
• Girlz Rebel Challenge - Buttons
• Heart's Quest Challenge - Pink or blue hearts
• Moving along with the Times - Butterflies
• Neglected Stuff Challenge - Butterfly die was purchased at a going out of business sale a couple of years ago, this is my first time using it.
• Paper Rock Scissors - Paper or Scissors (all layers are papers)
• Pearly Sparkles Challenge - Butterflies
• The Paper Funday - AG
• Triple B - Butterflies, Birds or Blooms

💖Verona 💖

Today I am also continuing with some more vacation photos, this time it's a few snapshots from Verona. This was just a short stop as we were on our way to my sister's house (north of Munich) but since we had to change trains in Verona I decided to book the train tickets separately so we could spend a few hours in Verona. And we were not disappointed about our decision although I wish we had a little extra time. But when your family lives over 4000 miles away then you plan to spend as much time as possible with them therefore I didn't plan a full day in Verona. 

Verona has one of the best presevered Roman Amphitheatres, still used today. If you have watched this year's winter Olympics then you may already know that the closing ceremony was held here.

Enjoyed some window shopping... 

and saw several vintage/antique shops.

Cats!!!

How cute is this??!!

And some fun souvenirs at a market stand.

We did try to see Juliet's balcony but unfortunately as of April 2026 you are no longer able to see the balcony for free. We would have happily paid to get into the courtyard where you can see the balcony from but with a very short time window there just wasn't any time to wait in line for a ticket. Oh well.... the city was beautiful and we fully enjoyed it without seeing the balcony. 

Loved all these wild poppies growning along the train tracks. I am having such a hard time to grow poppies here in Illinois!!

The 5+ hours long train ride from Verona to Munich was anything was boring as we got to enjoy some beautiful views from the window as we made our way through the Alps.

The next 10 days we spent in Germany and Austria with family.. I will share a few more photos as I sort through them. 

If you missed my first 2 sets of vacation photos and would like to see them, you can find them in the links below: 

• Milan  
• Varenna on Lake Como