WWC182 – Tristan’s “All About Occasions” Challenge

It’s new teammate Tristan‘s turn to host this week at the Watercooler Wednesday challenge. It’s our All About Occasions challenge, and I decided to make a one layer birthday card. Be sure to visit the links at the end of this post to see what Tristan and the rest of the team made and leave some love on their blogs.

I used the sweet fish stamp from Simon Says Stamp’s Under The Sea Animals and started by stamping it out seven times on my card base, trying to keep it fairly random. I then used my Spectrum Noir Illustrator markers to colour them in.

I kept the colouring very simple with no shading, just one colour per fish. The idea from this card came from the thought of a fish rainbow, so that influenced my colour choice. I did avoid the stripes on the fish as much as possible as I wanted them to be white, and I went back in with a white gel pen to brighten the stripes up and also to put highlights on their eyes.

Next I took the narrowest brush stroke line from Simon Says Stamp’s Brush Stroke Messages and used it to create a frame around the card. I masked the two fish on the left hand of the card to make it appear that they were swimming in front of the frame. I also only partially stamped the lines at the top and bottom so that they would not be too long.

I wanted to have a sentiment saying “birthday fishes” but couldn’t find one in my stash, and didn’t feel like creating it with letter stamps so instead I used the birthday sentiment from the Brush Stroke Messages set and stamped it below my fish.

I wasn’t entirely happy with my free as the ends of the partial stamping didn’t look as near as I would like. I decided to add an Ebony Black Nuvo Drop to each corner. I then also took my Nuvo Jewel Drops in Sea Breeze and used that to add bubbles to each fish. I gave them three bubbles each, and tried to vary the arrangement for added interest.

Going into this card the only idea I had was that I wanted something to do with a rainbow of fishes. Beyond that I really wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I’m really pleased with how it turned out though. I love the added depth from the addition of the frame. Having the fish swimming in front of it really helps to give the look of dimension to the otherwise flat card. I hadn’t originally planned to have a frame on the card (not that I’d had much of a plan!) but it really looked to plain without. I’m also glad I decided to add the Sea Breeze bubbles, because it gives the impression of the fish being underwater despite the lack of a watery background!

Love,

Lady Joyful

Challenges included:

Cards Und More – Sea Creatures

Less Is More – Pets

Seize The Birthday – Birthday and Optional: Water

STAMPlorations CAS Card Challenge – Anything CAS

Watercooler Wednesday Challenge – All About Occasions

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Check out what the rest of the DT made:

Charlotte (that’s me!)

Crystal

Gail

Heidi

Helen

Kath

Marsha

Tristan