Night-sky backgrounds (a card & 2 free digital dictionary papers)

Do you remember fireflies?
Magical little fairy bugs in starry summer skies?
sighhhhhhh... :o)

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid.

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

1... The card & some ideas for different night sky backgrounds
2... The digital image from A Day for Daisies
3... a step by step pictorial for how to make this card
4... free firefly dictionary digital patterned paper (two styles)

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for different backgrounds

Cards with night skies:

On the front this 5.5" square card says "This little light of mine..."

The text paper has the definition of firefly on it
(a homemade dictionary digital paper-available below)

and the inside says...

"I'm gonna let it shine!"
...with a heart-shaped firefly
(and there are fireflies on the black envelope as well)

To make a card at night, you can simply cut out your image & paste it on black.

Some ideas:

...use black cardstock
...black patterned paper
...or print a black digital paper
...heat emboss or pressure emboss
...stamp, or paint a black background.

The (night) sky's the limit! Of course, your sky doesn't have to be black, it can be navy, purple... whatever you like.

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A Day for Daisies digital image:

Holding Fireflies

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make this Holding Fireflies card:

• Image: Holding Fireflies digi from A Day For Daisies...
• ...embossed from Canon inkjet printer on Borden & Riley #234 Paris Bleedproof 108lb paper for pens
• Fine clear embossing powder (I use Stampendous clear detail powder)
• Heat gun, Clear distress Crackle Paint: Rock Candy
  
• Black cardstock, circle cutter, ruler & White Prismacolor pencil crayon
• Sakura pens: Stardust glitter pen, White souffle pen, black glaze pen
• Copic markers & Prismacolor pencils (turquoise, & skin and hair tones)
• Paper piercing tool
• Needle, thread, scissors, adhesive
• Nestabilities Label Five & a Cuttlebug
• Cream coloured watercolour paper
• White text weight paper & dictionary digi papers (for scallops)
• Scallop template to trace
• Vellum cardstock & word document to print & heat emboss sentiment
• Seam binding ribbon
  

Step 1} Print, Colour, and cut out the image.

1a} Print the image. As always, I've embossed the Holding Fireflies digital image on Paris Bleedproof paper. It lets the ink jet printer ink stay wet long enough to hold the fine clear embossing powder. (You can read more about that digital embossing technique here if you like).



1b} Colour it (no need to stay in lines since it's being cut out). I used Copic markers and then added some Prismacolor pencil crayons over top (that way the pencil won't clog your Copic marker nibs). I also drew in little lines for the toes-a weird detail, huh?

1c} I love to score lines in hair using a paper piercing tool,
and then colour with Copic Markers and Prismacolor pencils:



The colour stays in the grooves.



Step 2} Cut the figure of the girl out. (The dress is dotted with white souffle gel pen



Step 3} cut the jar of fireflies out & cover it with distress crackle paint (rock candy is clear and gives lovely fine cracks-too cool for school!) :0)



Step 4} To make the nighttime background- cut a circle of black cardstock This one is 2 and 7-8 inches in diameter Add a highlight in white pencil crayon to create a horizon line.



Step 5} Place the image temporarily on the circle where you'd like it to sit & draw little white circles for fireflies (add sparkle & black gel pen dots too):



5 b} Pierce and stitch around the circle. I also added a bit of turquoise cardstock behind that I dotted with white gel pen & cut roughly



Step 6} Create a mat to back the image with text paper. This text paper is available below. I scanned it from an old dictionary to share with you. :)

This shape was made by cutting a die cut (Nestabilities Label Five) and trimming it straight on the sides. To get the thin black border, I just adhered it to black cardstock & cut the black paper by hand.



Step 7} Print a sentiment (this one is printed from a word document) on vellum cardstock, emboss it quickly when it comes out of printer Adhere to white cardstock & colour with Copic or other light marker to tint it. I used turquoise: B00 frost blue.



Step 8} Adhere the words of the sentiment to the underside of the mat.

Here's a shot of the sentiment from the back:


It's on a speedy strip of adhesive (LOVE that ATG gun. It took
some getting used to but it's a nice speedy option).



Step 9} Add some scallops. I liked the idea of having hand-drawn lines on these scallops as a trim detail, so I used silver gel pen to trace an old-school plastic template.

By machine: If you have a die cutting machine you can cut scallops (The Cricut Plantin Schoolbook cartridge has some lovely scallops. More about them in this post here.)

To make hand made scallops: Trace a shape template to create big fat scallops. If you have a plastic one like the Creative Memories one used in the picture above that's dandy, or you could print the free fat scallop template included in this post to make a paper template to trace.



Step 10} The white scallops didn't seem to tie in with the cream coloured watercolour paper of the card from so I slipped a piece of paper under & coloured the scallop edges with prismacolor pencil # 314



Step 11} Add a strip of stitched watercolour paper over the top scallop, then add the image & a bow...

and there you have it....

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Two free digital
firefly papers:

Fireflies dictionary page DARK:

DARKfireflies on Flickr PNG

Fireflies dictionary text patterned paper LIGHT:

LIGHT fireflies on Flickr PNG

or you can

Download the files at Acrobat.com:

LIGHT firefly paper PDF
LIGHT firefly paper JPG

DARK firefly paper PDF
DARK firefly paper JPG

Need help with how to download from Acrobat? Please see this post.

Files as a PDF and PNG on PaperCraftPlanet here JPG/PNG
Files as PDF and a PNG on SplitCoastStampers JPG/PNG

Hope your day is flickering with beauty,
just like a firefly-filled sky!

P.S. I'm not affiliated with A Day For Daisies (I'm just addicted!) ;O)