Koi Pond

A few months back, I bought my first stamps from Designs by Ryn, and was quite excited when they arrived.  I had a bit of a play with 'water droplets' but the others have sat on my table (oh dear! Am I bad or what?)  So the other day I decided it was time to have a play and create something.

I've come to enjoy making tags (although I'm not sure what to do with them all) and thought the Koi fish would fit very well.

I started off by blending Distress Ink 'peeled paint' and 'peacock feathers' into a lovely shade of green.  I then overstamped it with 'Fiddlehead' and 'Sea Bubbles' using 'peacock feathers' and 'tea dye' inks and was quite happy with the result.

Next I stamped the 'Koi Fish' onto white cardstock and coloured them using watercolour pencils.  I then clear embossed them before cutting around them.

A month of so ago I was at a craft show and happened to come across some stencils by Artistcellar that I hadn't seen before.  I was quite intrigued by the water collection and ended up buying 'ripples', and so as I looked at this tag, I decided I'd add 'ripples' using more 'peeled paint' so it creates a sort of shadow effect.  I glued the top koi directly to the tag and the bottom one is popped up on dimensionals.

To finish I coloured a piece of cream seam binding ribbon with watercolour pencils, spritzed it with water and scrunched it up to blend the colours before tying it onto the tag.

I'm entering this tag in this weeks Oriental challenge at Tagalong

Happy crafting!