Fairy Wishes & Birthday Kisses

Time has rolled around again for another Southern Girls Challenge. Time is just flying by this year and we have just had a Design Team call for the next term. We have a fantastic lineup of talent joining us this next term, and I'm so happy that Lou and the crew have invited me to do a second term at Southern Girls. It's such a cool crew with a fabulous design team and it's about to get really interesting with a huge range of crafty talent joining us. I'm really having fun on this Design Team so it's lovely to be staying on. Now let me take this opportunity to extend a very warm welcome to all the new crew!

Our latest Southern Girls Challenge is a 'Texture Challenge'. So we want to see anything on your card that adds dimension, adds texture and interest. So bring out your embossing folders, your glitter glues and glossy accents, and those chunky embellishments! We are sponsored by the sweet All Dressed Up Stamps range for this challenge and were given a couple of images to play with that are really fun. I chose the sweet fairy as I had a wee birthday girlie in mind for this make. She's going to love this sweet character. 

The sweet fairy I've used is called 'Fairy Magic' and is such a cute image. The sentiment comes right alongside the image, but you could fussy cut this to add it elsewhere in the design. I had real trouble with the light on my photoshoot for this card. It was a grey day and the sparkle just wouldn't show in her wings. It also doesn't show up the colour of her hair very well, which is actually candy floss pink! So you'll just have to 'imagine' the right colour. Here are some of the details close up.

I used an embossing folder to make the Happy Birthday sentiment from a strip of paper matching the main background. Then I rounded the corners. The clouds were also made from an embossing folder and then fussy cut around a few of the shapes to make a smaller cluster. I was really happy with the 'textured' effect that these two embossing folders gave this card. The flowers also add texture. These are from Wild Orchid Crafts, my favourite place to buy my mulberry paper flowers from. They are white Tulips, white Cosmo Daisy and pink edged Hellebore. The lovely velvet ribbon was a gift from one of my sisters and the white cotton lace is from the Warehouse here in New Zealand.

Here's the wee cutie closer up, so you can see the shading I've done on the dress and the butterflies (though not as visible as I'd hoped). You can also see the generous helping of Stardust Stickles I added to her wings, though it really is sparklier in reality! You can also tell her hair is pink here, though it's actually candy pink, not the muted pink that it looks like here. Really must sort out a better setup for taking my pics. Winter natural light, just isn't cutting it! Any advice out there?

A slightly different angle above, better shows off the sparkly wings and you can see some of the Waterfall Stickles that I used on the butterflies too.

The pretty designer paper I've used is the Aquarelle page from the Prima Fairy Belle range by Jody Lee Designs. I cut this paper along with all the other mats, with my Go Create Frilly #10 die and my eBosser. I'm so happy I bought my eBosser before leaving the UK. It's a brilliant die-cutting tool. I still love my Big shot for smaller die cutting jobs, but the eBosser is the bomb for all the large dies and large embossing folders too.

Thanks for popping in on my blog today. Come back in a couple of days, as I've finally worked out how to do the 'sticky post' thingy and I've just hit 50 followers, so I'll be offering a little candy. That's all I'm saying, you'll have to pop back to see. Do stop into the Southern Girls Challenge blog and check out the gorgeous work the rest of the team have done, even some of our new crew joined in, so there's quite a feast for the eyes over there. Why don't you come on over and enter with your own 'textured creation' we'd love to see what your interpretation of the brief is. See you soon. Hugs, Wends x

Challenge Entries:

Crafty Girls Challenge: #24 ~ Anything Goes

Card Mania Challenge: #53 ~ Birthday Party!

Crafting From The Heart: #31 ~ Anything Goes

Crafty Creations Challenges: #269 ~ Flower Power

Crafty Calendar Challenge: August ~ Anything Goes

Penny's Paper-Crafty Challenge Blog: #190 ~ Anything Goes

Inky Impressions Challenges: #172 ~ Animal Friends (Beautiful Butterflies)

Die Cuttin' Divas Challenge: #178 ~ Favourite Colour Combination. (I love using tones of the same colour in my makes. It could be tones of any colour, but today it's greeny blues.)

Inky Chicks Challenge: #35 ~ Photo Inspiration. (Used the colours of the eye as the main colours in my creation and the skin colours in the designer papers.)

Sunday Sketch & Stamp: #214 ~ Louise's Sketch. (I've turned the sketch 90 degrees and then flipped the sentiment, so it runs horizontal rather than vertical, otherwise all the elements are there, plus a few clouds!)