I’ve been a busy girl this past week. I have a lot of schtuff to upload to share, but the days are getting away from me with all this Christmas prep going on. Can u say CRAZY days?

This weekend I played around with my Skipping Stones Design stamps again and created this fun little card with the Tropical Birthday stamp set. I really like this set! I tried a few different things with the images, but ultimately I decided on using the fishies.

Here’s this week’s sketch SSD04:

Once I started playing with designs I decided that the current position was not working for me, so I flipped the sketch and made it look like this:

And then I decided to elongate the card to a full sized 4.25 x 5.5” card. Really, the sketches are “just guidelines anyway” meant for you to use as a jumping off point in your creative adventure to creating your masterpiece, right?

Here’s the Tropical Birthday stamp set again:

And here’s my card:

I have wanted to do a “gel” card for a long time now, but not being a fan of “messy/gloppy” card projects I’ve avoided doing it. However, those little crafty angels that sit on your shoulders were sitting on mine having a heated discussion about whether or not I should do a “messy/gloppy” project. Ultimately the little red angel won and I set out to do my gel card. I rooted under the sink for Brent’s bottle of Dep Sport Endurance Styling Gel – Marathon Hold and went to work. I squirted some of the gel in a little cellophane baggie that I taped up really well with clear packing tape. In the meantime Mr Mess and Ms Glop came to visit because I failed to realize that the baggie I used had a couple of tiny holes on one of the edges, as if the edge hadn’t sealed properly. Yes, the Dep Sport Endurance Styling Gel – Marathon Hold was now all over the section of the workspace in front of me. So for the duration of the project I got to enjoy the wonderful scent of Dep Sport Endurance Styling Gel – Marathon Hold…. gaaagggg. I think if I do this again I will use aloe vera gel or something else… lol!

Gloppy Mess behind us… moving on….

I used a circle Nestabilities die to cut through each layer of the card and embossed the top green layer for added texture/interest. The fishies are actually stamped on the white card base. I traced a circle on the white card base and then random stamped the fishies in Ocean ink from CTMH. Originally I tried coloring them with a clear glitter pen, but they just looked kind of muddy. Each layer of the card is stacked up and carefully lined up the holes so that you can’t see the other layers beneath. I love the bubbles in the Messy Gloppy layer. They’re fun to squoosh.

The card looked kind of nekkid once I had the focal point and sentiment adhered to the card so I pulled out my ribbon scrap jar and fished (haha, pardon the pun) out that fun raffia-like ribbon that I used on the last card I made with the Tropical Birthday set. I tied the ribbon around the edge and moved the sentiment up over the top to neatly tie everything together.

Skipping Stones is having another sale today! Perfect timing for the holidays… Today you can get 25% off your order PLUS free shipping again. WAHOO! Just head on over to Skipping Stones Design and start shopping. Be sure to enter 25off to get your discount!

Stay tuned for some upcoming blog candy… oh, like say, maybe tomorrow… OR later TODAY… cuz I just typed it up and it’s a ready to post!!! *grin*

Fishing you… a Merry Christmas!

Inky Smiles!

Supplies:
Stamps – Skipping Stones Design’s Tropical Birthday
Inks – Ocean (CTMH)
Papers – Cosmo Cricket, Gina K
Miscellaneous – Dep Sport Endurance Styling Gel – Marathon Hold (Schwarzkoph & Henckel), Misc ribbon, adhesive, Nestabilities Classic Circles,