Hello again. I have a card to share with you today after having a delivery from Bumbleberry Paper craft store. It was waiting for me when I got home, so I couldn’t resist playing with it. The stamp and die set is from MFT, and called Exquisite Ocean.

I took inspiration from several challenges – the colours of pink, red, and mint from Color Throwdown, a trio of something (fishes) from the current Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge, and anything feminine from Watercooler Challenges.

The background ‘Waves’ stamp is from Hero Arts, and I used the Merman ink from Lawn Fawn. I die cut that with the wonky rectangles from MFT, as I think the wonkyness (a new word!) adds to the ocean effect.

Once I had stamped and layered the little fishes, I used the matching dies and then set to arranging them on the background. I stuck them down using 3D glue, as it gives some dimension, and also gives some wiggle time if I didn’t like how I placed them.

One thing I generally do now – I create two backgrounds. On one of them I arrange the die-cuts until I like it, then remove them one at a time, and stick them down on the second background. That way the position tends to remain the same. I have tried taking a photo for the placement, but I find this way so much easier.

These are such cute little fishies, and I stamped quite a few of them so I could make several cards, and will vary the sentiment on each of them.

The sentiment is from Hero Arts, and I die cut the ‘hello‘ from black card with a double sided sticky sheet on the back of it to make sticking it down so much easier, and then stamped the word ‘beautiful‘ directly onto the card. I know – stamped with my heart in my mouth as I did it the last of all – very brave of me! I didn’t even use my Misti as I didn’t want the fishes and weedy things to squash down!