Abi Ballerina | VeryBelle

Hello again! I’m back this afternoon to share my DT card for the new challenge over at Sentimental Sundays. This week, we’re fortunate to be sponsored by All Dressed Up and our theme is “Bling It Up!”.

The All Dressed Up illustrations are always such a treat to colour and create with! I chose to use Wear With Style for my card, as I’ve had my eye on some of the more grown up girls in the collection – as you know, I love Abi Ballerina for a little girl, and I had great fun with Little Bookworm recently, but it was time to crack open the ProMarkers on a new image!

I coloured the girls using ProMarkers, as they were so tiny, I mainly stuck to two shades of colour to avoid the ink bleeding into the surrounding area. For the red/pink tunic dress, I used tried several reds and pinks, but couldn’t get anything delicate, but strong enough, so I used Carmine and a blender pen, drawing some ink onto the blender and working from the darker areas to the lighter areas. Once they were coloured, I added some Tumbled Glass Distress Ink to the edge of the image to soften the edges and create the illusion of sky in the background. I had cut a Silhouette file of a Polaroid type picture, and popped the girls into their frame. To make it seem more realistic, I added a sheet of acetate between the frame and the image, so that the picture is glossy, like a real photograph!

The background papers are all from the DUDS Camera Summer papers, available on Etsy. I found the colours in these papers were the perfect complement to my image, drawing in the colour from the girls’ outfits. I mounted two panels on some green glittercard for a little sparkle, then mounted the three panels on the card base as if they had been thrown down (very carefully!). Adding a couple of 3D pads to the top two panels created a little depth to the card. Finally, I added two flower shaped brads that I have had stashed away for years! I simply folded them around the corner of the panels, rather than piercing the card.

I think that’s about it….can’t explain how excited I was about creating a fake Polaroid!! Shame you can’t really see the effect in the photos, it’s more of a “had to be here” kind of thing!!

I’m going to enter this card into the current challenge over at All Dressed Up, which is Love Is In The Air….I hope that the fierce love and loyalty among a group of girlfriends counts….!

Make sure you pop over to Sentimental Sundays to see what my team-mates have created to inspire you this week! I look forward to seeing your sparkly, blinged-up creations in the challenge!

I’d like to enter this card into the following challenges:

All Dressed Up – Love Is In The Air

Come and Get It – Girly

Color Me Creative – Make It Girly

Cards Galore Encore – Bling It Up

Crafty Hazelnuts Patterned Paper – Patterned Paper

Alphabet Challenge – Z for Zesty

Card Makin Mamas – Make It Sparkle

Wags ‘n’ Whiskers – Bingo (I used the top row: pink, die cut. glitter)

Thanks for reading x

I’ve been busy making two very similar, but obviously different, cards today. Both feature Abi Ballerina from All Dressed Up; Abi is an old favourite of mine – my daughter even had a top with her picture on when she smaller! I also based both cards around the same sketch from the current challenge over at Sketch Saturday:

For the first card, I coloured Abi in shades of lilac and purple, and gave her brown hair. There are little touches of sparkly Stickles on tutu and hairband.

I used a patterned cream and lilac paper from the Dovecraft Back to Basics III paper stack, added a little Bazill card circle with daughter welded to the edge and popped it on a final layer of cream card, embossed with the X-Cut quilting folder. I cut the wording out twice and added the second layer on top, just to create a little more depth.

The final touch was the band of lace across the centre – I have been dying to use some lace on a card, but haven’t yet been brave enough….hope it looks OK!

The second card features little Abi again, this time coloured in light greens, with touches of Stickles on the tutu and hairband.

This is for a little blonde girl, so I changed Abi’s hair to reflect the intended recipient! The layout is the same as the first card, but as I kept the colours much simpler, choosing to add texture to white cardstock instead, I feel there is a much cleaner look about the card. Unfortunately, the coloured mat hasn’t come out too well in the photo – in reality, it is Celtic Green by Bazzill, and is a much springier green, which is similar to the colour of the tutu. The band of ribbon across the centre should look a few shades darker….but again, hasn’t been treated well by the photo, despite my best efforts to digitally redress the colour balance!