Labour of love ..... literally!

The other night I thought I'd get my pencils out and do some colouring. Normally for me, I colour quite quickly as like to get that bit done so I can get on to the card making (which out of the two, is my favourite part). Anyhow I decided that I would actually spend a lot longer on my colouring and add a background, highlights, glitter .... yadda, yadda, yadda! Well .... whilst I enjoyed myself, I'm not sure I could do this everytime I wanted to colour an image. My eyes were knackered.com. I "bow down" to the full time colouring crafters amongst us, as you have the patience of a saint and probably a lot more besides.

Well here she is ..... Serenity Stardust from Polka Doodles ...

After colouring her, I rather bravely (or stupidly) decided that I wanted her to be placed amongst the stars, so set about creating my star shaped background. I've done a simple tutorial to explain what I did to create the shape.

Step 1:
Cut a piece of card slightly smaller than A5 - 13.5cm x 20cm (my chosen size). Lightly score a line at 15.5cm (slightly bigger than 6"). Place your dies so that they cover the score line. I have marked the score line in red in photo below. Stick in place on your cutting mat but beware .....

Place your card as photo below which shows where the score line will be on your cutting mat.

Run this through your machine and you will then get this shape ...

Step 2:
Now I became "flash Harry" and decided to add star shapes to the sides. Run through your machine and you will get star edges too!

Step 3:
Next cut out different sized stars to mat and layer. See below of my "rough" mock up ...

After layering up my stars, I then stuck down my Serenity Stardust image and added a few little stars to merge the two parts together.

I then added this to a dark blue glittered background to highlight the sky I had coloured and to make the stars "pop" even more.

Serenity Stardust has been coloured with Prisma pencils with added highlights using GraphIt shaker pens in white, glitter silver and glitter gold. As an added extra, I used white fine pearl pan pastel which adds a real shimmery effect (which the camera does not pick up well). Phew, as said in my blog post title ... a labour of love!

Lou
x x x

You can get Serenity Stardust here (click on image) ...



Challenges:
Clear It Out - girls and die cuts
Creative Card Crew - for a teen
Papertake Weekly - theme I chose, "use glitter" (glitter via GraphIt pens, glittered stars and paper)
Through the craftroom door - anything goes
Tuesday Throwdown - anything goes
Artisitic Inspiration - anything goes with a twist of diecuts
Crafting from the heart - anything goes
Craft your passion - anything goes
Crafty Cardmakers - shaped card
The Pink Elephant - anything goes
Tip Top Tuesday: hair