Playing with Fish again

I have quite taken to Ocean Commotion. At first I knew I had to have it, but didn't know what to do with it once it was here. I am now finding that there are things that I can do with it, and the Polished Stone technique background was one of them.

Have you seen this technique? Basically you put on a pair of disposables gloves (trust me on this), saturate a cotton ball or makeup sponge with rubbing alcohol, drop a couple of drops of dye reinkers in coordinating colours onto it and a drop or two of metallic (Encore in this case) reinker and dab all over a piece of glossy white cardstock.

The alcohol makes the metallic ink sort of run around the cardstock in a random fashion and the effect is quite pretty and not a little like a quartz stone with a vein of metal running through it.

Anyway, after reading a discussion about Polished Stone on a mailing list I'm on, I realised it had been a long time since I did this myself, and voila, here it is.

You can't actually see the silver streaks running through the fishy background in this photo, and it really is incredibly subtle even in real life.

An idea that I have borrowed from a blog I was visiting the other day (Karen Thomas' Luv To Stamp - lovely work there!) was to use my Crop-A-Dile to emboss dots for the bubbles, then I used a little Two Way Glue to stick some Dazzling Diamonds glitter onto them.

Supplies used:

Stamp sets: Ocean Commotion
Ink: Black Stazon
Cardstock: Basic Black, Certainly Celery, Bashful Blue, Not Quite Navy, Glossy White
Other: Scallop Edge Punch, Crop-A-Dile, Two Way Glue, Dazzling Diamonds Glitter, Classic Stampin' reinkers in Certainly Celery, Bashful Blue and Not Quite Navy

And an update: A few days ago (well, maybe a week or so) I posted this card, which was a little unfinished at the time. I have since had another look at it and used some advice from Pauline to finish it a off bit better.

Thanks Pauline!

Supplies used:

Stamp sets: Ocean Commotion
Ink: Real Red, Ballet Blue, Pumpkin Pie
Cardstock: Ballet Blue, Pumpkin Pie, Real Red, Basic Black, Old Olive, Whisper White
Other: 1-1/4" Square Punch, 1-3/8" Square Punch