A Virtual Vacation

Creating texture and dimension

I designed this underwater reef scene as a virtual vacation in an effort to ignore the snow that is falling outside my window…yes, I made this tag on Friday, May 17!

 

I hope you love texture and dimension as much as I do because that was a main focus for this tag.  I used scraps to create this scene and the “glitter under glass effect" techniques was added as described in this week’s SCS MIX16 challenge.

The base of this tag is a scrap of paste paper with a debossed swirl pattern. The seahorse was made with a scrap of paper created with the shaving paper technique. It was die cut and run through a crimper. The other sea life elements were cut with original Cuttlebug dies, embossed with small graphic patterns to add texture and enhanced with distress inks. All were attached with matte medium.

The "under glass effect was made by using stickles to highlight the seahorse and large shell and a light covering over the entire element. Once dry each  was covered with glossy medium for the “under glass effect”

The top of the tag is covered with small scraps. Stickles was used to fill in all the gaps between scraps and sparingly cover the surface. When dry the scraps were covered with glossy medium.

Since I previously had not used glossy medium I did a comparison test for this project. I found:
·   Glossy accents provided the look with the thickest layer of coverage and perhaps best meets the description for Glitter under Glass.

·   Ranger's Glossy Glue N Seal was the thinnest layer of coverage.

·   Claudine Hellmuth's Studio Glossy Medium provides a mid-range glossy look-similar to cloisonné and became my preference for this project.

I am entering this project into eP Picks Challenge - Gel Medium at Eclectic Paperie

As always I appreciate you taking time to look at my work and when you share your thoughts you add sunshine to my day! May your day include some happy creative moments!