Rainbow Fish

I joined this swap at the last minute after seeing S and D's card on her blog.  I really wanted a copy of that card and I was all caught up on my current swaps, so I figured I would challenge myself to carve and create a card in a week.  It turns our I work well under pressure.  My original design idea for this card was quite different; but, when I colored the image in by hand it looked more like a 70's style image rather than the more streamlined look I was going for.  In the end I settled for something entirely different.

 I almost abandoned this design idea; but, Sharkboy declared it to be the best thing he had ever seen, so I walked away from it for a bit and came back to view it with fresh eyes and only then did I realize it was pretty neat.  I had intended to add another accent stamp at the top and bottom, embossed in black;  however, I had an allergic reaction to the embossing powders, so I will be avoiding that medium for a while till I determine if any embossing is safe for me.  

It turned out to be a blessing in disguise; because, I think the additional design would have made the card too busy.  I actually really like the way this card turned out.  The orange layer was stained in Orange Marmalade distress ink. The inner two layers were created using alcohol inks. I used two colors for the water and three colors for the fish.  The stamp was stamped in archival ink.  Instead of carving an additional stamp for the back I included an image of the un-embellished stamp. It has such a different feel to it when stamped alone and I really wanted to share that since it was much closer to my original design idea.