A tribute to Eric Carle

The Craft Barn calendar challenge is asking for pink and butterflies. I've done a butterfly on one of the previous pages of this collage calendar, so I had a bit of a challenge getting going and wondering what I could do about not repeating myself.

Ever since I started this collage calendar, I have smiled at the memory of Eric Carle books. His style is intriguing and inspiring, and one of my favourites is the story of a little caterpillar eating it's way through all sorts of stuff and ending up a butterfly. So that's approximately what I did, though I didn't have space for all the eating! I started with some background stamping (all stamps from Rubber Dance) and a layer of acrylic paint scraped over. So far I've just used paper scraps for this calendar, now I used some ribbon for the stem of the plant. After adhering everything I did some sewing and finished of with Sharpie pens. Lovely bright colours to make anyone's day!

When my daughter looked at this she first asked what the purple blob was (the chrysallis) after which she noted that the eggs are missing... Oh, well... kids do know and notice it all, don't they? I'm just going to be happy a fifteen year old actually bothers to stop by mom's desk and shows some interest in what's happening. And if someone wonders about the eggs in the future, I'll claim the eggs are hidden on the backside of one of those leaves :)

The previous pages of this collage-calendar can be found here:

January
February

March

April
May

June

July