Best Fishes!

I love making my Dad birthday cards with a fishing theme! This year I wanted to make a shaped card, so I looked on the Silhouette Design Store and found the perfect fishing card – and then pulled out some of my favorite cardstock from Cut Cardstock! These cardstocks cut so beautifully on the Silhouette! It makes putting these shaped and themed cards together a breeze!

I cut the base and pieces of the vest, including from the pockets, from the Environment Desert Storm cardsotck, 80#.

After I cut out all the pieces to the vest, I wanted to add a little something – some color and texture to the pieces before putting it together. I love adding stenciling, stamping, and/or ink blending to cut out pieces to help them pop! It adds interest and fun. I didn’t do that to the smaller pieces on this card.

I used a red rubber background stamp to add the texture look to the vest. I put the stamp onto my MISTI door, and the small pieces on the stamp where I wanted that particular design on the stamp to each piece.

Then I closed the MISTI, lifting the base instead of the door and flipped it over. Then I opened the MISTI door, and this kept my pieces where I wanted them to be.

Once, I had all the pieces stamped, I used a blending brush and the same color I stamped with to ink up the pieces with darker color around the edges and fading into the center.

These steps don’t take too long, and it is definitely worth it to add some extra oomph to your cut out pieces!

I used several different colors of the Pop Tones and the Basis cardstocks for the other pieces that go on the vest, such as the bobbers, worms, scissors and hooks! These cute little elements were so much fun to create.

Another tip I have is how to line up the centers to letters. The gray piece has the letters cut out and goes on top of the blue piece. I need help getting the insides of those letters in just the right place.

The easiest way for me to do this is to place the centers in the right place is to put the whole letter in where it belongs, put a dot of glue where the center piece goes and fit that piece back into the letter.

Wait a few seconds for the glue to grab the center and then you can lift the letter piece away. A bonus here is that you have the letter for another project!

The last step is just to put it all together! This particular file made holes all around the edges to do some stitching. I didn’t want to stitch, so instead I used a black Gelly roll glaze pen to make faux stitches around the edges of the vest, the buttons on the pockets and the eyes to the worms.

Thanks for checking out my project today – I hope you REEL-Y enjoyed it!