Whimsy Stamps ~ Something Fishy

Hey crafty pals, as promised, I'm back with my last Whimsy Stamps creation to finish up the month of August and yes, it's another one featuring those amazing Fancy Fish! I just loved working with this beautiful stamp set, there are just so many ways you can colour up these lovely tropical fish and I sure have had fun trying out a few different colour ways. I chose colours to tone with this beautiful 'Under The Sea' Slimline Paper Pack, because it just works with these fish so beautifully and it makes creating a scene so incredibly easy! Perfect for a fabulous but relatively quick make. I went for a portrait paper for this make and combined it again with another fabulous slimline die to add a little bit of interest and dimension to this creation. 

I think this paper is so pretty, I wanted to cover as little of it as possible, so I didn't swamp the scene with lots of extra elements. I didn't want to cover the beautiful jellyfish, which are part of the paper scene, so I chose the positions of my fish to allow as much of the jellyfish to show as possible. I added the two top fish with foam for a bit of extra dimension and interest. But the one at the bottom I added straight to the paper, to vary the levels a little bit. I stamped the little air bubbles in white over each fish to ground the scene which worked well, because the paper also had bubbles in the design. I chose not to add a sentiment to the card, as I'd not decided yet, what I would use this card for. I can add a sentiment later, to fit the recipient. 

I just love the lush colours in this paper pack, I drew out the beautiful purple tones by making my card base from a toning cardstock, I think this sets up the whole card so nicely. I had a UK A3 page of cardstock, so I cut it down to create a slimline card base. Because it was A3 size, I was able to make it a top folding card, to work with the portrait orientation of the card. I didn't want to trim any of the width of the patterned paper, so I cut the card to 4 inches wide and 9 inches long. So the actual trimmed length of the top folding card is 18 inches opened out by 4 inches wide.

One of the final little touches to finish this card, was adding back some details to the fish eyes. They got a little lost in the inking, so I used a white gelly roll pen to add the white details back in, then when that dried, added a dot of black gelly roll over it, to bring that darker detail back. 

I am excited to be moving into September, because I love all the excitement that ensues at Whimsy Stamps as all the Halloween lovin' crew go for broke creating some magical, spooky, fun creations to celebrate the Fall and Halloween season. But the first of September is a little bittersweet for me as tomorrow would have been my papa's 79th birthday. He's been gone from us for 22 years now and there's not a day that goes by that I don't feel his absence. It's true time is a healer, it helped me learn to live with the loss, but the heartache remains, that has never gone, it is just a familiar pain that's become a part of me, a constant feeling like something is missing, someone is missing. I'm so glad to have had such a wonderful daddy and his loss has taught me to never take life for granted, to treasure the special people in my life. Not sure why I needed to share that, perhaps it's the fish! My daddy taught me to fish, I had to gut and scale my own fish and we'd cook them up for dinner. Just one of the lovely memories I'll treasure always. Okay, that's enough waxing nostalgic from me, I'll be back very soon with another crafty adventure and I send big hugs to anyone who needs them today xoxo

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