Brighter Days – CIC 447 – The Joyful Soul Creates

It’s time for a new challenge at Cupcake Inspirations, and this time our theme is Magical Creatures! I used an image from our sponsor Crafty Sentiments Designs – who are generously providing 3 digi images to our randomly chosen winner – to make my very first attempt at a reveal wheel card. It worked out well enough after a bit of trial and error, though I think I could probably do a better job if I were to do it again.

I started by printing the Amy on the Cloud digi stamp onto some alcohol marker friendly paper and colouring her in with my Spectrum Noir Illustrator Markers. As the image is drawn very simply I kept my colouring very simple too, not adding too much detail. I did bring in a very light blue to add shading to the cloud. After completing the colouring I fussy cut the image out and set it to one side.

Next I started working on my background. I created my reveal wheel first. My original attempt at the wheel had four segments – rain, sun, rainbow and snow. I didn’t entirely like how that looked though. I die cut a new circle with my Sizzix circle dies and coloured it in two parts. I used Mermaid Lagoon Distress Oxide for the rainy side, and Squeezed Lemonade for the sunny side. I also bought in a little Cracked Pistachio for the space in between, to help the transition. I also stamped some raindrops from Simon Says Stamp’s Showers and Flowers onto the blue side of the circle.

I created my cloud panel by ink blending some Altenew Ocean Waves over a fussy cut cloud mask. I could have used the Mermaid Lagoon for this but I actually did this after my first circle attempt at which point I hadn’t got my Distress Oxides out.

I used my Sizzix circle dies to partially cut a window from just below where my fairy would be placed. I also used a smaller die to cut away a section at the side of the panel as well as in the same area on the card base, so that it would be easy to hold the side of the large circle for spinning it. I used the same small circle to cut a circle of white card, then poked a hole in the centre of both it and my reveal wheel circle. I used a brad to connect them too each other, added some foam tape to the small circle, then attached that to the card base. I covered the rest of the card base with foam tape, avoiding the area where my circle was.

I then stamped a sentiment from Showers and Flowers to the bottom of my cloud panel, then added ‘spin me’ from Heffy Doodle’s Interactively Yours, before adding the cloud panel to the card base. I realised the brad was slightly too dimensional and was causing a bump in the panel where it sat over it, so I carefully trimmed the card away from the area where the brad was. I then placed foam tape on the back of my fussy cut image, avoiding the area where she would overlap the reveal window, and adhered her into place. Finally I added some shimmer to her wings using Tonic Aqua Shimmer Pen.

I’m quite happy for a first attempt at this kind of card. It definitely took me quite a while to complete and there are several places that I feel I could have improved. I’m glad I gave it a try though. I’m definitely happy with the colouring, and really like how the cloud background turned out.