Birthday Fishes

I am so excited to share what I finished making today. Fun, fun! My dear son was invited to his first friend birthday party at the zoo. I was going to make a zoo themed gift and card, but I came up with a fun beach gift. Since the birthday boy's last name is Fish; I used that as my theme.

Here is my beach "cake" guy.

I just used the same method of layering as I do for my diaper cakes. It includes a bottle of bubbles, beach towel, pail, shovel, sunglasses, water balloons, and candy.

I decided to "package" it in mesh netting, like the kind that sand toys are often sold in. (this one came from a toy truck my son bought) Everything got squished a little, but I wanted everything to stay together nicely until the birthday boy opens it. (very easy to open just a bow holds it shut and then a bow around the towel, nothing else is secured)

Now the card is the part I am so excited about. You got a peek of it in the first picture, but here it is:This is a gel "water" card. You can get instructions for it over at splitcoast stampers in the resources section. http://www.splitcoaststampers.com

Here is a little better close up of the fish bowl. (all of the images are handdrawn; don't have any fish stamps) First on the card base I did a layer of blue chalk (this was necessary b/c I was using clear hair gel you could skip this if you have blue tinted hair gel) Then I drew and colored in the fish with water color pencils. Next I used double stick tape to adhere the small bag with gel in it over the fish. Then I made the top layer. I drew a fish bowl and cut out the center of it. I used my fiskars shape cutter for the circle and the scallop top. I then took glossy accents and adhered it all around the fish bowl as well as on the little jumping fish and water drops. Once this was all finished I attached the top layer over the card front. The finished card size is a standard A2 so it is smaller than the card they did at splitcoast. The baggie I used for the gel was one that some of my scrapbook embellishments came in, so I am sure most of you have some of these at home already. :)

Okay this turned out to be a kinda long post. Hope you all enjoyed! If anyone tries this and has any questions let me know. It was really easy to do, just a bit time consuming. (not sure a 5 year old boy will appreciate the card, but my son like poking at the gel)