Fish Carving

Busy making my ATC's with my kindergaarten background, I decided I wanted to stamp on one of them and not knowing which of my few stamps are angel stamps, I thought to make my own. So, I pulled out my cheap little break-off blade knife and some Speedball Speedy Cut Printing Block rubber, drew a quick picture and proceeded. I drew the picture in pencil, turned it over and rubbed it firmly with my fingertips while it rested on a small piece of block I had cut off the larger piece. That's all it took to transfer the design. I ran over it with a sharpie pen and then started carving trying to keep in mind not to undercut and lose part of my carving which I must have done as I lost one dot and had to glue it back in place. This picture shows the block half carved because in my enthusiasm to start something new I forget I should take pictures all along the way for my blogging friends to see! I had heard these blocks cut like butter and those comments aren't kidding. Trying not to cut too much is the hard part.



After I was done with the carving I went back to one of my background pieces I had made earlier. First I stamped and embossed white shells to change the background a bit. Then, thinking the fish wouldn't show up very well on the bright background I glued a ragged piece of tissue on and then stamped the fish over it. The tissue took away too much of the brightness so I took the same trusty ol' knife and scraped away some in the center of the card. That was better. The card was too plain though, so I added sequins (I finally got to use a few!) for fish air bubbles.



I really like my fish carving; it reminds me of a wooden printing block. I am not quite as happy with the ATC so now I need to come up with another project in which to use the fish. First I will just print some in different colors on different papers and put them in my drawer for what if's (quite often that is how I work: what if I lay this on there, how does that look? No? Yes? hmmm.. well, let's try this...)







I think my fish could be used with fabric ink for a border on
a quilted cat block or in shrink plastic for card tack-ons. I'm sure I will think of other uses.