Ballerina Tilda

Good morning friends...and Happy Friday to you!! I was able to enjoy a few days off this week as my boss was away. As a result, I was able to get some of my crafting and colouring done during the daytime...usually I'm a late evening crafter. It really was a treat to have the house to myself for a couple of hours...it was so quiet!! Pure bliss. :)

Today I have a card to show you featuring the gorgeous Ballerina Tilda...this stamp was a gift from Phebe, owner of The Town Scrapper. (Thanks Phebe!) Some of you know that I have a soft spot for ballerina images as my daughter loves ballet. I was so excited to get my inky little paws on this one! I've been seeing these gorgeous flowers all over blogland, so I thought it high time I try making one. They are super simple folks...I just took two strips of patterned paper (I think I used 1"x 9" strips for this flower), scored them every 1/2", folded them accordion-style and then glued the ends together. The next step takes a little fiddling to shape it into your flower. I had cut a base for the flower out of scrap cardstock and covered it with some Score Tape and my Tombow Glue...then I arranged the flower on top and placed a really heavy book on top to weight it down until the adhesive was dry. That pretty pearl brad in the middle is from KaiserCraft. I also used my Spellbinders Lacey Circles to cut a mat for the flower. I pulled out my Viva Decor pen for another whirl too...still not having the best success with this product. Don't get me wrong...it's a fantastic product. I just need to practice with it more. This time around, I thought I was being clever by lightly tapping my card onto my hand after creating my pearls....you see, I thought this would help to level out the slight peak in the pearls. (you know how you can tap the bottom of pans to get the bubbles out of cake batter?? that's kind of what I was doing) I will NEVER do this again!! lol The pearls around the flower sure did lose their peaks...they totally flattened out. Yikes!! I was not exactly thrilled with this blunder, but there wasn't much I could do to fix them at this point. Once again I ended up with "smushy" pearls. Armed with my new found knowledge on "what NOT to do", I added some more pearls to the bottom punched border. These turned out much better...still not perfect, but a vast improvement on the above fiasco!! I am determined to get the hang of this product, as I know it will be a huge $$ saver for this pearl-lovin' gal! The layout of this card is courtesy of the January Sketch For You To Try. (I haven't entered a challenge in quite a while!)



Tilda was stamped on Neenah Smooth cardstock and coloured with Copic markers. I did add some Prismacolour pencil to her dress afterwards...mostly a bit of white to highlight the folds of her tutu. When I was assembling my card, I realized that Tilda was too bright for this muted and slightly vintage card. So, I pulled out my Antique Linen Distress Ink and used my Inkssentials Blending Tool to very lightly apply the ink over the entire image. It did help to mute the intensity of the Copics, but you need to use a very light hand as the Antique Linen Ink will make your white areas appear quite yellow if you apply too much. Her little tiara and the trim on her tutu were given a coat of Stardust Stickles



Copics: Skin: E000, E00, E21, E11, R20 Tutu: RV000, R81, R83, R85, R89 Hair: E50, E30, E31, E33, E37, E59

Phebe carries both Magnolia Stamps and Spellbinders at The Town Scrapper. You can contact her by telephone at 519-882-0623 or by email at info@townscrapper.com to arrange a visit to the store, or to place an order.

Thanks for looking in today folks, and I'll see you back tomorrow with a new challenge for Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps!

Blessings,

Melanie

Stamps: Magnolia "Ballerina Tilda"
Ink: Memento, Copics, Antique Linen and Walnut Stain Distress Ink, Prismacolour pencils
Paper: Neenah, Kraft cardstock, Bazzill, Basic Grey, SEI, Prima
Tools: Spellbinders Lacey Circles
Embellishments: Tim Holtz tag, Viva Decor Pearl Pen, machine stitching, Martha Steward border punch, KaiserCraft brad