Moonlight Revels

Hello everyone!  It's Tuesday and time for a new challenge over at Fun With ATCs.  For this fortnight we'd love to see your Artist's Trading Cards (2.5 x 3.5 inches in size) on the theme of Magic or Magical Creatures.  There's some really exciting inspiration from my fellow teammates here, plus all the challenge details of course.  Here's my offering to get you started:

This was a really tricky one to get a good photo of because there's so much faerie dust around (a.k.a. Perfect Pearls, Distress Stickles and Dry Glitter); the real magic happens when you move it around in the light...

I make no apologies for employing the same fairies as in my Once Upon A Time Steampunk Fairytale Book... they're pretty much the only magical creatures I have amongst my stash.  They come from the Prima 6x6 Nature Garden collection.

This is how they look before any doctoring (apart from a bit of sanding round the edges where I've stuck them onto chipboard).

Now they've got some Perfect Pearls powder in Pearl on their dresses and an aura of Rock Candy Distress Stickles in the haze around them, as well as some doodling with the Inkssentials white gel pen to give a moonlit glow to them.










I love this little one!








The moon was created by pressing one of the Tim Holtz texture stamps into some WV embossing paste to get that bumpy, cratered look.

I knew I'd only be using part of it, so I didn't bother making it very round...

Next step was a liberal coating of Rock Candy Dry Glitter... you get so much dimension and texture from this, and it has such a subtle sparkle. Fabulous stuff...

That sparkle, plus a bit of inking, gives the moon a touch more presence... and sparks the faerie revels - dancing in the moonlight!

The words are stamped with my little £1 alphabet stamps with some doodled moonlit highlights.  

They're inspired by Puck's speech from the end of A Midsummer Night's Dream - you'll find it below, of course (oh, and if you're wondering about my weird spelling of faerie, I did go into it here), and I'll leave you with that...

For now, I hope you'll have time to check out the inspiration from the rest of the DT, and it would be fabulous to have you play along with our Magic and Magical Creatures theme at Fun With ATCs... 

I really can't wait to see where your imaginations take you (and us).

Have a wonderful week!

Puck:
Now the hungry lion roars
And the wolf behowls the moon,
Whilst the heavy ploughman snores,
All with weary task fordone.
Now the wasted brands do glow,
Whilst the screech-owl, screeching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in woe
In remembrance of a shroud.
Now it is the time of night
That the graves all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the churchway paths to glide.
And we fairies, that do run
By the triple Hecate’s team
From the presence of the sun,
Following darkness like a dream,
Now are frolic. Not a mouse
Shall disturb this hallowed house.
I am sent with broom before
To sweep the dust behind the door.
William Shakespeare









Oops, nearly forgot!

For something completely different, there's a one-time-only chance to see the card I made for my nephew over on the Artistic Outpost blog today.

"A card?", I hear you cry.

Yup, a card... because that's what doting aunts do for their adored nephews (and I'd do it for my niece too, but pretty much nobody else.  Grrr... I hate making cards - what is that about?!)

Happy Crafting everyone!