Getting Inky with my Spade Fish

What a great day today! I got my hair cut and popped in to the art store on my way home to get some paper to try something I read about on Fred B Mullett's website. While I was there, I found some lovely Japanese paper, which I used on this card (the line-y one in the background). This afternoon, my girlfriends and I were at the church making dinner for a women's shelter. The shelter had a big fire in December and their kitchen has been out of commission so various parishes in the city have been providing meals. Our parish has Saturdays. Today we made Nigella's mini meatloaves (totally delicious), Nigella's New Orleans coleslaw (ditto), buttermilk mashed potatoes and steamed vegetables. For dessert we cut up fresh fruit and made Grizzly bars (a family recipe that roughly translates chocolate chip cookies into a square or bar, or slice if you happen to be reading this in the UK, and- wouldn't that be a thrill for me!) Talk about the perfect comfort food meal, just right for this cold, grey, wet day. My family just loves those mini meatloaves, I think it's because they get a nice crunchy outside and are not too mushy in the middle. Also, my regular meatloaf frequently conceals grated zucchini, hmmm perhaps the mushiness culprit..... They also freeze beautifully if you are the sort that likes to know you have an emergency dinner in the freezer that everyone will eat.

Anyway, back to the card! I had been experimenting with this fish (Spade Fish, Fred B Mullett) and some different things, and found a line of experimentation worth pursuing. I stamped the fish in versamark on irridescent gold shimmer paper (the paper is white, but has a gold irridescent shimmer - it's the one we used at Heather's on the Hothouse Hibiscus class). I embossed the fish in Psychedelic embossing powder, heating different portions differently to get the different colours to show up. (If you try at home, stop when you get to red - this is the last colour before it goes flat.) After it was embossed, I applied shades of blue and green distress ink with my blending tool and then spritzed with water, flinging on some larger droplets and let it dry. I added some definition to the eye with a navy marker. The card base is Handsome Hunter stamped with a wonderful swirly dot background (Fluff- Impression Obsession). The fish and the Japanese paper are mounted on Night of Navy. There is a nice blue-gray piece of tsumugi paper in there too. I spied an interesting accent on my ribbon hanger and trimmed it to fit, rearranging some of the pieces to suit the layout. It's a Fancy Pants glitter embellishment in green. I didn't find a way to get it off the backing, so I don't think it can come off. If you do know a way to get it off, let me know because I have another one. I left this sentiment-free, suitable for multiple occasions (Congratulations Fishmongery Graduate, Condolences for the One that Got Away, etc.).

In other news, DH returned our monitor and got a different one that is much better at showing colours and doesn't blind me with it's brightness. I can now enjoy blogging and emailing again. Yay!!! Thank you DH!!!