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Sun 31

Birthday Fishes
by Laura Fulcher

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Greetings friends.  I hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend.  Today I wanted to share a card using the Serene Goldfish die.  This is one of those cards that I envisioned turning out one way and then changed the design along the way. However, I am going to show you all the steps I took and then talk about why I changed my mind in the end.

When you cut out the die, you get two pieces:

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I love that it is in two pieces because it is easy to color one part without getting color on the other.  In my original design, I wanted to watercolor both the background and the fish.  For the background water, I cut out my fish/background using 140lb watercolor paper and drew lines using my Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers:

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I then softened everything with a waterbrush:

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I really liked the watercolor, but I think you may have noticed I didn't use it in the finished card.

Next, I scribbled some dark orange and light orange onto my goldfish.  Notice that I didn't color the whole fish with markers.  I wanted to leave some empty spaces so that when I softened the colors with a waterbrush, I could drag some of the paint to get a gradient of color:

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After I used my waterbrush to soften the color, this is what my goldfish looked like:

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The fish die has an indent for the eye, but I wanted it to really pop. Therefore I cut out a tiny circle using black cardstock and a 1/8" circle punch.  As a tiny detail, I added a small dot to the eye using a white paint pen:

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So, why didn't I use the blue watercolor background?  As much as I loved my background, I really enjoyed how much the dark blue cardstock made the orange fish pop.  I am therefore saving that piece for another card and went for a very simple layout for this card.

As I mentioned before, all of the new circle dies mix and match with the various frame dies, so I decided to pair my fish with the frame from the whale set because I really liked the shells on that frame.

Of course, to finish the card I had to add one of the new coordinating "punny" sentiments.

Laurasignature

 

Supplies

 

Comments

Too clever wishing ‘birthday wishes’ with the beautiful koi in the traditional colors! Using the navy blue is perfect with the orange!! Love this card cuz it’s clever, different & has the zing I love!

No, this auto correct thinks it knows best it is ‘Birthday Fishes’!

Love the card. Thanks for sharing the stages. The original background will look great with a fish more white with orange patches, like koi, but the navy is right with this fish. Amazing what a difference it makes.

Lov, love, love your card Laura!

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