WOIW: Prudence

I've combined two challenges in the Kraafters Kommunity this week in this one project. One is the regular weekly Word of Inspiration Wednesday challenge (WOIW) and the other is the monthly Kraaft Shaak challenge. The inspirational word this week is 'prudence' and the monthly challenge is to use orange and blue together in one project.

I had to look up the exact meaning of  'prudence' in the dictionary. While I understood the general meaning, I wasn't quite sure whether it had a positive or rather negative connotation. This is what I've found in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:

"careful good judgement that allows someone to avoid danger or risks"

This made me think. While it is generally a good idea to avoid danger and risks, too much caution could be an obstacle to development and progress. In fact, I've found quotes like "Prudence makes life safe but does not often make it happy". Anybody who knows me will tell you that I'm a careful person. Probably a bit too careful, in fact. I seldom take risks and I avoid dangerous situations at all cost. I didn't like the sound of that quote, perhaps because there's some truth in it. However, I've found another quote, supposedly by William Shakespeare, which resonates with me:

"Prudence is the best trait of courage"

This, to me, means that we should be brave and courageous, but also wise enough to exercise caution and common sense when making important decisions and taking risks. With this in mind I've created this journal layout using orange and blue as per the Kraaft Shaak monthly challenge.

I used acrylic paints for the background and home made texture paste for stenciling the butterflies. For the texture paste I mixed extra fine polyfilla, acrylic paint and a bit of talcum powder to make it thicker.  The other three butterflies were cut from napkins. I used a matching blue gelato to outline some of the page elements. I think I like how this page turned out, although up until the end I wasn't so sure!