top of page

The Old Days Series: Best Fishes!



Hi everyone, today I have a set of cards for you featuring fish, they will be sent to my twin nephews so I guess I would qualify them as suitable for guys (I would advise staying away from the pink colours in that case (guys seem to be allergic to that colour)) !



To get the first card started I stamped a couple of the images from the Your Next Stamp set called “Fishy Fun” onto some Strathmore Bristol Smooth paper with Versafine “Onyx Black” ink and clear heat embossing afterwards, this keeps the lines crisp and black. Then I started colouring all the images with my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers and my Pentel Aquabrush. I used the following colours: Lemon Yellow, Yellow, Bright Yellow, Orange, Scarlet Red, Red, Lilac, Violet, Deep Violet, Light Gray, Blue Gray, Light Blue, Beige, Mid Brown, May Green, Green, Mid Green and Olive Green.

When the images were dry I added some white details with a Sakura white Gelly Roll pen and I fussy cut them out using my Fiskars scissors.


Then it’s time to start working on the background: I die cut a frame using two rectangle nesting dies in different sizes and using light craft card stock. To create a bit more interest I stamped on the frame with Versafine “Vintage Sepia” ink and using a Hero Arts stamp called “Canvas Background”, fading the ink out towards the top.



I also die cut a white linen textured rectangle panel, slightly smaller then the white linen textured card base I planned on using for this particular card. I could have adhered the frame directly to the card base (since it’s the same material as the added white panel, but somehow this extra layer makes this card more interesting to look at). I decided where my frame should come and drew a line on the inside of the frame using an erasable pencil. To create the illusion of water I applied some Distress ink in the colour “Tumbled Glass” with a foam applicator tool, keeping most of the ink at the bottom an in the top right and left hand corners.



Next I stamped one of the sentiments that came in the Fishy Fun stamp set with Versafine “Onyx Black” ink on the white linen textured panel and using my MISTI (because of the linen texture I wasn’t sure if it would stamp okay in one go, but it did). To ad a little something extra to this otherwise plain background I cut of some bubbles from the biggest stamp and second generation stamped those in random places, using Memento’s “london Fog” ink, enhancing the underwater feel. I also splattered on some FineTec PearlColor in “Bronze” like sand was whirling around from the bottom of the sea.


When the pearl color splatters were dry I put this card together. I adhered the white linen textured rectangle panel to the white linen textured card base with one millimetre thick foam tape. Then I adhered the craft coloured frame on top, making sure that the edge of the blue ink wasn’t showing and using small squares of one millimetre thick foam tape and finishing this first card by adhering the fishes and corals in place with Ranger Medium Matte and one millimetre thick foam squares.



For my second card I choose a square white linen textured card base, I used a circle shaped frame and for the background blue colour I used Memento “Summer Sky” ink because that matched the Copic colours that I used for colouring the images better then the Tumbled Glass” colour that I used on the first card.



I stamped the same images as used on the first card on Copic friendly paper with Memento “Tuxedo Black” ink and coloured the images with my Copic Sketch Markers: I used the following colours: R0000, RV91, V93, BV11, V17, E50, E42, E55, E57, Y08, Y19, Y26, Y000, YR20, Y23, Y38, YR18, G40, YG06, G16, YG97, N1, C00, C4, C9, C7, B0000, B01. I also used the white Sakura Gelly Roll pen to create details!

I put this card together in exactly the same way as my first card.


This stamp set is awesome (I wanted to write cute, but that’s not very masculine, right ...), think about all the scenes you can create (if you have a mermaid stamp, think about all the combinations these combined stamp sets give), I especially love the little turtle!


And that’s it for today’s project! I wish everyone a creative day!

bottom of page