Southern Girls ~ Sparkle & Shine

Have you ever had one of those weeks where you just can't get it all done? I am only half way through creating this card, so the pics show the incomplete work. But I threw a migraine yesterday and just couldn't get either of the two posts I was meant to do finished. So here I am, in my incompleteness, asking you to see the possibilities until I can get it finished. This is of course, my design team post for Southern Girls and I worked with a gorgeous stamp set from our Sponsor 'My Favourite Things' to create (or half create) this fun card. Our theme this challenge is 'Sparkle & Shine', which I just LOVE, as I adore anything with a bit of glitter and shine. I just love these lil' dragons too. How cute are these guys?! So so so cute me thinks!

Here's my elements all ready to go, but not completed. I stamped random hearts all over the sky, to suggest this was a little magic the daddy dragon is doing. If you look closely, you can see I embossed a smoke cloud onto acetate (because I wanted a sheer effect) and because he's blowing down, I've added it in the direction he's blowing. I didn't want to cover the dragon really, he's so cute, so using the acetate meant you could still see through the wee smoke cloud.

 

I coloured these cuties from the MFT BB Magical Dragons set with my BG copics. A new adventure for me, as these are brand new! There's quite a gap between the lower two BG shades, so I wasn't super chuffed with the blending, but I'm a copic newbie, so I chalk that up to more practice needed. Oh to be near the lovely Faye for one of her classes! The above shots show the sparkle on the floating hearts and on the wings and horns of the two dragons. Wink of Stella was added for those sparkly touches. The shine on the silver embossing of the smoke cloud is lovely too when it catches the light. 

I had a play with some little clouds, these were created using a CC Designs cloud die, from one of their 'Build A Card' die sets. One has a wee heart cut out of it and one is plain. The paper set I used, had a page with these embossed and sparkly clouds, so I fussy cut those intending to add them somewhere in the cloud mix to tie the paper in more to the design. They're just loosely placed above, apart from the edge ones which I've stuck down. Two of them popped up on foam for dimension. I'm not convinced I have the balance right with the clouds yet. I think I'll take that middle one off.

It didn't take me long to settle on this paper for this creation. I just love the magical feel to it, which I think fits so well with this image. The swirls mirroring the dragons puff of smoke. I think it's a really fun paper. Yes it's busy and usually I steer away from this, as it can detract from the image too much, but on this occasion I think it works. I did need to mat the image with the white shimmer paper scallop die though, to give it a border that framed it and ensured it didn't get lost in the busy paper. The die was slightly too long, so I cut it and then cut just one end again to make it a little shorter. This is also an older CC Designs die. I'll hunt out the detes for this later.

I've put the image panel against some navy cardstock, just to show off the lovely pearlescent scalloped edge frame. In this light, you see the sheen on the pretty pearlescent cardstock which I also used to cut the clouds too. The pale blue clouds were cut from a pale blue paper from the same paper pad as the swirly busy paper I've used as the main background page.

Hear it is, all ready to be stuck down, but I'm still not convinced about the longer navy card base, I might create a square one yet. I've not stuck down the image yet either, or all the clouds. So once I've completed this creation, I'll come back with a final pic to show you what I chose to finally do. Oh the indecision! LOL.

Do stop by our awesome sponsor to check out their fab goodies and if you like what you see, be sure to stop in and add your own 'Sparkle & Shine' creation to our challenge for a chance to win a wonderful MFT prize! The rest of my teamies have totally nailed the challenge this week with some truly gorgeous 'Sparkle & Shine' creations for you to swoon over. Be sure to stop by their blogs for a closer peek at their gorgeous creations. I'm off to finish the card I should have posted last night for my previous DT post! Oh dear, it's really been a busy year so far and I'm not keeping all the balls in the air, but I try! Hugs to you all and I'll be back very soon with my next post. Hugs and happy crafting, Wends xoxo