Ocean SPARKS

Well, it's a heat wave. With the humidex, the temperatures have been in the high 30s Celsius, which is about 100 F. I'm on day 4 of a massive headache, and I'm fairly certain if it lasts much longer there will be long-term consequences arising from the short tempers we're all experiencing. My desk is not a happy place to be during the day, but the wee hours aren't too bad. Yesterday, very early, I thought I'd make an ocean-inspired card for the current SPARKS challenge - inspired by Lindsey's card using the same fish!

Supplies: Paper Smooches stamps from Birthday Buddies, Geo-Graphic; scrap orange card stock; googly eyes; Palette Noir ink; Versamark; Distress inks in Peacock Feathers, Spiced Marmalade, and Salty Ocean; Stampendous embossing powders: clear detail, sapphire, and moonstone; Bic markers; Sakura Stardust gel pen

I got VERY embossing happy with this card. The Geo-Graphic dots were stamped in Versamark, and then coated with Sapphire EP. I tapped the paper until only about half of the EP stayed stuck, and then added Moonstone. This gave the circles a neat two-tone sheen (totally worth the mess!). The sentiment was embossed by inking each word in Versamark & then the Distress ink, and then coating with clear EP. The fish were stamped with Palette & then clear EP (if you do it quickly, no other ink needed there). 

I coloured the scales & tails, then cut the fish out (trimming off their party hats) and glued them down just by the bodies. I bent up the tails a bit for even more dimension:

In case you're new to my blog, you may not know that my dear friend Barb has LOADS of Paper Smooches (and other fun stuff) for sale on her blog - including this Birthday Buddies set, which I use ALL.THE.TIME. Go look :D

Now I'm off to try to convince the fam that going to the beach would be better than staying here and fighting with each other ;) Have a great day!!

 xoxo,
Jessi