Another post already?

Yup! :) This one is a bit special since I made it specifically for the challenge over at Mo's Challenge blog. The challenge was to make a Christmas card for someone special using traditional colors. I hope these can be considered traditional!
Now, I have to say, I'm not warming up to digital stamps the way I thought I would. Why? Well, mostly because I have a ton of trouble printing them! It's definitely something to do with operator error (not Mo's files - those are awesome!) but I can't manage to get one printed that looks good in under an hour. Yes, an hour! It's going to take some serious work to figure out what the problem is - in the meantime I've added this fairy stamp (and a couple of others) to my wish list now that they're being made by Stampavie. Hope I've been good enough for Santa!
I fell in love with this fairy just as soon as I saw her. I could think of all kinds of ways to use her - Christmas theme just happened to come first. There are a *lot* of things going on here - let me take you step by step.
First I printed the image (about 15 times, but you knew that). Then I colored her with a combination of Lyra Rembrandt Polycolor pencils and Prismacolor pencils. Honestly I'm not all that fond of Prismas but the Lyras don't have as many shades and I needed some 'flesh' colors. My understanding is that Prisma pencils are wax based and Lyras are oil based - the Lyra pencils blend like a dream! Everything on that panel was colored with Lyra pencils and blended with either OMS or the Splender pencil except the flesh colors. Even the sky!
Once the fairy was colored I used my Xyron to adhere it to a piece of white card stock (I told you the printer was giving me fits!). Using nesties and my cuttlebug I cut & embossed the panel. By then I felt comfortable adding glue and glitter to her wings, stickles to the star and some Radiant Pearls to her dress and belt. I set it aside to dry and started working on the green piece.
The green piece started out as a plain piece of white card stock which I colored with Pine Needles Distress Ink. The tree (Stamp Oasis, I think) was stamped several times with the same ink. Using Matte Mod Podge I glued a piece of mulberry like paper (with those silver & gold flecks in it) to the top of the green. Once dry I used the ScorIt to score the edges and a paper piercer to pierce around that. Finally (although you can't see it in the picture) I ran it through my cuttlebug with the snowflake Impressability from Spellbinders.
Layers of muted gold card stock were added, then everything was mounted on a 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 base card cut from decorative white/pearl card stock. That, of course, was also edged with Pine Needles. :) As the very last step I added the metal star clip and a Swarovski crystal to the top.
I wish you could all see this in person! It's very textured with lots of sparkle. And I *LOVE* my Christmas fairy!
Thanks for dropping by!