I sea it`s your special day - dimensional underwater card

Hello everyone ;o)
As cardmakers most of us - I'd daresay - we all love cards that are different from the cards you can buy in the store, right? For me it is cards with a lot of dimension like the one I am sharing with you today. I created it as a birthday card for a dear friend who loves diving, but the inspiration came from this month' inspiration "Under Water" over at Challenge Up Your Life. I wanted the feeling of the card to be a little like diving deep in the sea. What do you think? Did I nail it?

I created the box card by preparing two strips of paper and scoring them each 2 times. The deeper you want the box to be, the smaller the front piece needs to be in order to fit into a standard envelope. I wanted to cut this window with a die so I added a half inch to each side as a frame and defined the depth of the box accordingly. Then I added in some layers of water in a sense ;o) I needed those to add some fish that I glued to a piece of clear plastic in order to make it look like they are actually swimming. I also added the whale (because my friend likes whales very much) and also made the scene look more alive using some coral die cuts. I had cut these from a paper I had covered in nuvo shimmer paste. I love how they change colour just a little bit when you tilt them in the light. 

I also glued down a jellyfish which you can only see when you move the card as an extra surprise ;o) Also it added a pop of colour which I thought had been missing otherwise. The sentiment is a combination of letter stickers and a heat embossed piece. I wanted the "special day" part to stand out the most so I stamped on black cardstock with Versamark ink and heat embossed it. It was such a fun project to make and I love that it totally works as decoration, too. I hope you are going to join us this month at Challenge Up Your Life. We would love to see your projects, layouts and cards in our gallery! Have a fabulous week and happy crafting, everyone ;o) Maike

Supplies:

Stamps: "tba" (I cannot find the stamp set so I can't tell you the name.... Sorry - I will continue to search ;o))

Dies: "Build a scene - Underwater" by Taylored Expressions

Challenges:

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge "Anything Goes"

Addicted to Stamps and More "Make your mark"