Getting my fairy fix

I loved this "extra cream fairy" digital image from "A Day for Daisies" as soon as I saw it, but I was having trouble coming up with a sentiment.  Then I married it with the Etsy for Animals December challenge to create something that is a treat.  That's when I thought of the "enjoy a little extra cream" birthday sentiment.

Sentiment woes, however, was not my only problem.  The first fairies I made were big.  I had planned to make them the dominant element of my card.  Unfortunately, the sentiment is long winded, so it had to be bigger than I intended.  I made both pieces and then laid them out how planned and they were too big for the card!  Eeek!

I first wanted to use my damask embossing folder on some metallic brown cardstock I had.  That cardstock is a deep rich brown, like black coffee.  I thought it was the perfect fit.  So, I embossed a fancy square die cut to mat the fairy's and I choose a patterned paper to match it and then..... it was too busy.  Way too busy.  The fairy's sweetness was drowned out by the competing patterns.

So, I removed the patterned paper and I used a monochrome glittered paper.  Still too busy - glitter versus metallic mat.  Remove the glitter.  I tried a different embossing folder on the card front to serve as a stand-in for patterned paper then.  Still too busy!!  Argh!

Then, the sky opened and light shone down on the box that finally arrived: my wholesale order.  I was completely out of white cardstock for the last three weeks.  I had made emergency runs to the local scrapbook store to buy some at retail to finish some custom orders.  In my wholesale order of cardstock, I also had some patterned papers for my newest die cut fairy birthday cards custom order.  (I desperately needed some double sided patterned papers to go with that too.)

In there was some paper by Basic Grey that was perfect for these digital image fairies!  (Plus a stamp: Magical Birthday Wishes.  YES!  This will be showing up on some future fairies.)  Here's how I finally got the fairy to fit on a card.

See how the paper is still somewhat plain but not totally boring?  That's the perfect way to make the fairy be the focal image.  What a life saver!  Since the bigger fairy was made as part of an Etsy for Animals challenge, 10% of it's proceeds will be donated to the Southern Ontario Animal Rescue.

I made sure the next round of fairies were printed a little smaller.

If you click on the next picture, you will see the metallic of the brown mats and the glitter I used to outline the wings.  In my earlier attempts at this card, I tried to colour the whole wings in with the glitter gel pen, but it was too big of an area to cover.  I was getting hideous streak marks everywhere.  So, I tried my very lightest yellow on the larger fairy card and outlined with glitter to give an illusion of colour.  Then, I decided to just outline the plain white and I like that better.  I considered trying to draw spider lines like a dragonfly wing, but decided against it.  If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

I really like this image.  With my new "Magical Birthday Wishes" stamp, I also decided to spring for a dragon stamp from A Day for Daisies.  That will give me the "boy" version of this card.  Woohoo!  All these fairies were coloured with my copic markers and cut out by hand.  I don't have the patience to superblend, so I only used two colours per area instead of the recommended three.  For the pink dress, I used only one pink marker and I used my colourless blender to make the highlights.  The coffee cream was hard to blend because the paper I used seemed to go transparent if I wet it too much.  I might have to investigate some more copic friendly papers.  (Know any?)