Lavinia Once Upon a Dream card

Good Tuesday afternoon here. Hope you are all well and had a nice Easter weekend. We were pleasantly surprised by our daughter and son-in-love who live 200 miles away but were going stir-crazy and needed to get out for a drive, lol. We entertained them in the front yard, standing well away. Just a brief visit and I ached to hug them both, but it was wonderful to see them, nonetheless.

Yesterday was my girlfriend who lives across the street's birthday, and we had to do a non-contact exchange of her card by Honey going to deliver it in her mailbox and then I called her to go get. Now for the background poop on the making of the card: after all these years of being friends, I recently found out she has a guilty pleasure for fairies. And for the last several months I have been "collecting" Lavinia stamps and SceneScape papers, and telling myself I wanted to learn how to do those scenes with them. But I never got around to even using the stamps ... until now that I have a motive.

  

And I very much enjoyed making this card, but I am definitely going to take this whole Lavinia thing SLOW. I can see how addictive it could become. It was more than enough for me to make sure I stamped the silhouettes with full ink coverage and no smudging and good placement. My card is about as basic as you can get, compared to the many fabulous inked, glittered and stamped works of art out there in LaviniaLand. I did absolutely no ink blending at all. Except for my stamping and a little Wink of Stella, the scene you see is 100% paper. Even the two large trees, I did not stamp them. I am showing you the watermarked SceneScape paper I began with, hopefully you can see what I added AND what I didn't.

What I did was add my hand stamping in VersaFine Clair Nocturnal ink. The stamps I used were: One Upon A Dream, Fairy Couple, Slender Mushrooms, Spanish Moss and Star Gazing. All stamps are Lavinia. I then distressed the edges with my Tim tool, leaving the white edge, and adhered it to a black SU card stock panel, then that to the purple SU card stock base. Very plain as I thought the scene took presidence.

Well, I did add a bit of glittery shimmer to the Star Gazers' wings and also to the starry matter the fairy couple are playing with. Oh, and I also colored the stones the Star Gazers are sitting on, in a couple shades of grey ProMarkers so you could still see they were stones but not see-through.

Like I said, I am going to go slow with the fussying up but I am going to try to do a Lavinia card every so often and try out the different possible scenarios. I had to teach myself gelli printing using this same principle -- with that, I forced myself to just use different shades of one color and staying monochromatic helped keep it all from overwhelming me. LOL, if I dived into this Lavinia head first, I could drown, just sayin'. ;-) Better to make myself wade in. So be prepared to continue to see basic stamping and use of the SceneScape papers. Sorry to disappoint you advanced Lavinia card makers, but hey, you can look at mine and see how much better yours is!

Still, I had to use more of my stamps on this card. The ideas wouldn't go away! So inside, I combined the Once stamp with Dancing Til Dawn, Forest So Green, Secrets Are Hidden and Fairy Happy Birthday stamps. It was just too tempting not to!

For the back of the card, I had to find the right paper to complement the front and I turned to this sheet from Prima"s Fairy Flora 6x6 paper collection. I distressed the edges and matted it with more black. I took a purple scrap from the front and cut it with a Lawn Fawn banner die and stamped Spanish Moss on it, then adhered to anchor my Stamp Magick siggie stamp I corner punched on a white card stock scrap.

I always like to take a pic of the continuity of colors and design. Not shooting for Oscar-worthiness, but definitely a look pleasing to the eye or good enough. Otherwise, why bother to decorate the back is my thought.

So, I am a Lavinia Virgin no more! Hahaheehee. Thanks for coming by. Hope it wasn't too much purple for you (never for me!). Stay Safe, please! Prayers for us all, XOXO

MY CHALLENGES PLAYLIST
1.   Lavinia World Challenge #24: AAG -- I used all Lavinia stamps and a Pink Equinox A6 SceneScape paper.
2.   Time Out Challenge #159: Inspired By Quote -- I was inspired by the garden element. I thought this scene would be a lovely place for a book and a flashlight. ;-)  

3.   Outlawz Saturday Paper A La Mode 3/11-3/24: Romantic Garden
4.   PaperBabe Stamps Challenge #116: Birthdays
5.   Lil Patch of Crafty Friends #129: AG
6.   StarStampz Challenge #9: Things with Wings
7.   Artistic Stamper April Creative Challenge: In the Garden
8.   ArtsyStamper Digi Challenge #13: Things with Wings
9.   Through the Craft Room Door 4/7-4/14: AAG
10.  Classic Design Challenge 4th Birthday Challenge #4: AAG 

11.  Take a Word: Journey -- Wanting to play desperately, I am exploiting the TAW leadership's easy going nature to say, Hey, a Dream is a Journey...Into Your Mind...Or to a Fairy Glen at Midnight!
12.  If You Give a Crafter a Cookie #139: AG + Opt. Photo -- The purple cookie with the pink and yellow accenting in the photo is MINE! haha I used those colors and played the option. 

13.  Cutie Pie Challenge #146: Bunnie, Bear & Other B's -- I consider Fairies some of the cutest images ever and this is a Birthday card