Birthday 'fishes'

One of my cousins is turning five this week, so it's time for another birthday card. I needed a cute boyish card, and frankly, it was nice to have a little change of pace from the pink and red valentines. Without further ado, here is the final product:

Supplies (all Stampin' Up^® unless otherwise noted):
Stamps: Rough Edges Alphabet, Summer Splash, Shore Thing
Card stock: Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive, Crushed Curry, Crumb Cake, outer stair step card - Festive Variety pack (The Paper Cut)
Ink: Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive, Crushed Curry, Crumb Cake, Bermuda Bay
Accessories: Itty Bitty Shapes punch pack, Dimensionals, Mini Glue Dots, Wire Works copper wire, multipurpose liquid glue

I bought a pack of pre-cut and -scored stair-step cards several months ago, and I thought this would be a good time to try them out. I decided an ocean theme would work well because the sea animals could be popping out of the "waves" created by the steps.

I started by making a layer of "sand" at the bottom of the card by stamping a strip of Crumb Cake card stock with the speckled sand image from the Shore Thing set. I ripped along the top of the strip to add more texture and then stamped, cut out and adhered a few seashells and a little crab.

To create the "ocean," I first stamped the wave images in Bermuda Bay repeatedly on the steps of the card base. Then I stamped and cut out a turtle, octopus and three fish from Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive and Crushed Curry card stock.

I needed something to fill the empty space on the right side of the card above the top fold so I decided to have two of the fish leaping out of the "water." I cut two pieces of wire and used liquid glue to adhere the wires to the backs of two of the fish. (To cover the wire and to make it a bit more stable, I glued a small circle of the same color card stock over the wire.) I gently curved the wires and glued the ends to the front of the top step. I let the glue dry a bit and used a Dimensional to adhere the octopus over the ends of the wires. Then I added the turtle and the last fish on the lower step.

I wanted to create my own greeting for the left side of the card, so I went with a little pun: "birthday fishes." To add some color on that side, I used the Rough Edges Alphabet set to stamp the individual letters for the greeting on the different colors of card stock. I punched them out with the circle punch from the Itty Bitty Shapes punch pack and adhered them to the card with Mini Glue Dots.



I had a"fin" time making this card. Thanks for stopping by!