Goldies

Sharing a more personal post today, about Goldfish! 

For a long time I kept goldfish, and was completely obsessed with them. I learned some important lessons from the experience. 

1. Learn how long a pet can live for before you get it.

2. Properly research how much space a pet will need/or how big they can grow.

3. Most people are not interested in fish.

4. Goldfish have great memories, can be trained and show emotions. 

5. Peas are like crack/cocaine to goldfish.

6. Fish are very good at dying, it's their super power, and we can only wildly stab around in the dark to find out what's wrong.

I created quite a thorough fish health website at the time, because we got so many questions about "What is wrong with my fish?" I have left the bare bones up on my website, because it still gets a lot of traffic. It's mainly abandoned tho.

These were my two, Cedric and Percy.

They kept growing until they could barely turn round in this 30 gallon tank. Both were just common goldies and eventually succumbed to genetic issues. When Cedric died he was well over 12 inches long, not including his tail.

I didn't get more goldies, they can live for 50 years, and a 30 gallon tank is no where near big enough!  I do have some tropical fish tho, I've had them for about 7 years and they are mainly, fins crossed, a happy healthy little colony that live in my kitchen :)

In memory of my lovely goldies, I made a couple of cards using the Hero Arts CL945 Colour Layering Goldfish stamps. Hero Arts is one of my fav stamp companies, and I have a lot of their stamps, so many that they get their own drawer in my stamp storage! (No-one has this privilege.....yet!)

I used all the elements from the kit with distress oxides, added some glossy accents, extra greenery with a zig brush pen and some bling from the stash. Enjoyed adding some wobbly eyes to the fish too. Used some orange glitter card to mount onto the card base. Sentiment is also from the HA set.

Thanks for joining me today, was a more personal blog entry more interesting, or did you just scroll through it to get to the cards? I don't mind if you did, it's hard to find time to read all the blogs I would love to follow! :) 

Hippopotamus amphibius

Hello again :) It's a Dr.Digi friday and I have brought you a rather friendly Hippo! This is one of the Cuddly Critters from Dr. Digi's House of Stamps.

I was very much in need of a "go to" get well image for Hip operations! I think it must be a sign of my age that I seem to know more and more people going for a hip op!

Here is the digistamp image in the shop:

(This Hippo is also part of the Cuddly Critters Set! Fab value for money! Click here to see what's in it!)

 And here is my version:

I coloured him up with polychomos and a white posca pen. Added in a bit of scenery so he looks like he is just about taking a dip! Perhaps the water is chilly? 

I learnt lots of interesting things about hippos whilst researching them for this chap. I didn't know they had hairy ears for a start off! I like to look at some photos of the real thing to get some inspiration for textures.

The backing paper is from Making Cards Magazine and the font I have used is Candy Square BTN.

*****A friend has asked me for the colours I have used to colour the hippo, as they are now written down, I decided to add them to this post too, so this is added in an edit the day after!*****

Hippo Grey bits - Warm Grey II, III and V
Hippo Pink bits - Dark Flesh 130. Light Flesh 132. Venetian Red 190. Walnut Brown 177
Hippo Shade on grey and pink - Dark Sepia 175
Hippo Blending and Highlights - White 101
Skin details - Black 199 and Dark Sepia 175.

Thanks for joining me today, more Cuddly Critters to come! And also a special non-paper project I am working on!