Harmony: Pond Scene Card

 Hello and welcome to the blog; it's Rick back with you again today to share with you a card I created using the Harmony Stamp Set.  I wanted to create a card that reminded me of a Koi pond, so that's exactly what I did.  You may think that this was really hard to achieve but actually it really wasn't.  

To start off my card I simply had to stamp out the image from the Harmony Stamp Set a few different times in different directions.  I just needed to fill up my A2 card front with this beautiful fish.  Because I knew I was going to be doing some glazing with my alcohol markers to achieve the look of the fish under water.  I stamped them each time in an alcohol marker friendly ink.  Once I had all the fish that I wanted on my card front stamped out I could then start the coloring process.  

When the fish where all colored and the alcohol markers had completely dried, I could start the glazing process.   All glazing means is you take a transparent or semi-transparent media and apply  over your first application of color.  The result is a rich layer of color that can change the tone of value of the color underneath.  Renaissance artist used this technique a lot to mix their paints to get the vivid and sometimes iridescent hues you can see in their paintings.  As you can see with the fish on my card it gives the illusion that they are actually under the water surface.  

Once I had all the coloring complete I prepped the card front with my Cottontail Embossing Powder Tool and stamped the sentiment from the Harmony Stamp Set in an embossing ink.  I then covered the sticky ink with gold embossing powder.  Once completely covered I used my heat tool to heat set the embossing powder.  After the embossing powder had cooled I took my You've Been Framed Dies (I will tell you that this die set is my most used die set in my craft room.)  and cut out the inside panel.  I used the next to largest of the rectangle dies to cut the center out.   I then poked out all the little dots that didn't come out on their own, and then placed a piece of gold foiled cardstock behind this layer to create a mat.  I attached the outside piece from my design onto my card front, this piece fit my A2 size card.  

I then placed the matted card front in the center of my card base using just a little adhesive. If you wanted to pop up this layer with some Scrapbook Adhesive 3D Foam Squares that would give you more dimension on the card and look absolutely fabulous.  To finish off my card I added a few of the Clear Sparkle Enamel Dots (another staple in my craft room) to add a little bling to the card.  There you have it my crafty friends, how I created this gorgeous Harmony Pond Scene Card.  I hope that you have a fabulous and safe weekend.  

Rick