A Fairy Happy Birthday

This card is actually the one I was meant to make and blog about yesterday. Perhaps you noticed that I didn’t post anything! I had a nasty headache when I got home, and didn’t feel up to crafting, so I made it today instead.

I started by laying out my fairies and sentiment, all from Avery Elle’s Pixie Dust, and then stamping them onto a smooth white card base with the help of my MISTI. I then created masks for each of the fairies, and also masked off the card to leave a strip behind the fairies.

Then I began ink blending. I used Spun Sugar and Seedless Preserves distress ink on either end of the strip, as well as a touch of Milled Lavender in the middle to help the transition. I blended back and forth between the colours until I was happy with how it looked. At that point I flicked on some water droplets to lift off some of the colour which gave a bit more interest whilst also helping to discuss some of the less successful blending areas! I then removed all the masks. I was planning on keeping the masks to use in future, but the leg broke off of one, and the other wasn’t sticking very well any more.

With the blending done I moved on to colouring the fairies. I smooshed the Seedless Preserves ink onto an acrylic block and picked up the colour with a paintbrush, then used it to paint the dress of the fairy on the Spun Sugar side. I then repeated the process with the Spun Sugar for the other fairy. I then swapped the colours around and painted their wings, using my Wink of Stella as the brush in order to add some sparkle. I also used the Wink of Stella for the shoes and bow, which I coloured to match the dresses.

I switched to watercolour pencils for the skin and hair, as well as to add a little shading to the dresses. I used watercolour pencil because I was intending to blend it out, but in the end I didn’t, so regular pencils would have been fine. I left the colour for the skin fairly flat, but used flicks and layers of colour for the hair in order to make them look more realistic.

This card turned out pretty much exactly how I’d expected it to. I’m pleased with it, though the blending is a little blotchy. I still need more practice with it. I’m definitely very happy with the fairies’ hair. I’m also glad I decided to do my strip such that the fairies are slightly over the edge of it – I think if gives more depth to the card, and I’ve always been most impressed with one layer cards that have the illusion of dimension!

Love,

Lady Joyful

Challenges included:

Addicted to Stamps and More – CAS

CAS Colours and Sketches – Sketch/Layout (I turned the layout on its side, and used my sentiment as the middle ‘shape’) (edit – where it was a weekly winner!)

Less Is More – One Layer and Opposites Attract (I tried to incorporate “opposites” in a few different ways – the fairies are opposite to one another in that one has dark hair and the other light, one’s hair is up and the other’s is down. The dresses are coloured ‘opposite’ to the wings, in that they use the other colour. Likewise the fairies are positioned on the opposite background colour to the colour of their dresses.)

Watercooler Wednesday – CAS With Sparkle (my sparkle comes with the Wink of Stella I used. Unfortunately it doesn’t show very well in the photos!)