A Goldfish Bowl

This card was a lot of fun to make!

"A Goldfish Bowl"

I started by making a box from white card and cutting the aperture before decorating the front with some wood patterned paper and blue distress inks. Some acetate was sealed behind the aperture and the background sealed in place.

"Fish"

The background actually started out as this inked scene...

"Inked Scene"

I wanted something really colourful, and found this in my "ones I prepared earlier" file lol! Anyway, I used a Sizzix stamp and emboss set over the top of this together with some clear heat-embossing to create the "fronds", and went over the whole thing with darker inks to mimic the bottom of the sea. It was cut down to size to fit the base of the box, and the fish were attached using little strips of acetate and dabs of glossy accents so they wiggle when you move the box.

"Fish!"

Before glueing the lid down, some little drops of glossy accents are added to the acetate and some seed beads and shells glued into the base of the box to look like the bottom of the bowl.

"Shells"

The white box is wrapped in a brown card wrapper decorated with door stamps heat-embossed in gold.

"Happy Birthday"

Warm Autumn Colours - October at Stamping Sensations

Wow, October is here already. What a wonderful warm September we have had here in Northern Ireland, and the trees are looking fantastic in all their Autumn glory, so what better inspiration than nature for this month's theme at Stamping Sensations and we are asking you to produce something with "Warm Autumn Colours". Share your creation on the challenge blog and you have a chance to win a fabulous prize from Imagination Crafts.

For my project this time I chose to make an easel card a la Sue Wilson. You can make the front of the card any size you like (as long as you have an envelope to fit!), and then just adhere an easel stand to the back cut using the Tim Holtz Sizzix Bigz easel die.

 

I started with a piece of faded orange backing paper from DCVW Pumpkin Patch, then overstamped with some of my favourite meadow stamps, colouring some in and creating a leafy frame. Various autumnal shades of archival inks are used to give some depth.

 

The bird is stamped from a Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz set in archival, and overpainted using watercolour paints. I love the effect you get using this technique, which allows some of the stamp detail to show through the translucent paint. The branch and tree trunk are painted in by hand to match, using the same colours as the bird to tie the scene together.

I matted and layered onto gold and brown cardstock and could have left it like this...

 

... but instead diecut a lot of leaves from Pumpkin Patch patterned paper and used them to decorate the frame giving the feel of a bird peeping through the leaves.