Under water

A couple of years ago, after almost 25 years of a shitty marriage, a major part of the pre-marital correspondence landed in the oven during one of mom's "clean up & throw way" episodes.

To me, it was most revealing: firstly, I never knew such correspondence existed, and secondly, it turned out that the questions that were not answered in the years before the wedding, were still the cause of main arguments 25 years later.

However, after a quick "note to self" I managed to sneak a little something from the fire - a little fish made of paper stripes. It was simple and cute at the same time and something I thought I might use in one of my projects one day.

From then on, I imagined countless under water scenes every now and then, but never really went to work. Only a couple of days ago, I finally took out the battered model and searched my stash for yellow, orange and golden papers. 
As I decided to make a maritime card, my fish would have to be slightly smaller than the original. With stripes 5 mm wide, crafting turned out to be quite challenging at moments, and yet the creatures turned out to be too large to realize my idea of a flock of fish on a wavy background. 

In my plan B, I decided to make the card with more than just fish. I stitched a little Fadengrafik ornament which isn't a big thing, but all in all, the card turned out to be full after adding two fish already. To make the scene interesting anyway, I added a vivid background paper with a pattern of ocean waves. Additionally, I raised the stitched strip with 3D adhesive pads and gave tiny gemstone eyes to the fish.

As it didn't seem to be enough and I turned out to be in full crafting mood, I decided to place a little piece of sand patterned paper in the lower part of my card. It was intentionally thorn a little bit to avoid the clear-cut, artificially looking sandbank. After that, I started adding plants and stones that I've cut out of cardstock leftovers.
And after a long period of (crafting) inactivity, it felt so good to be back in my paperstash and set my fantasy free :)

For the third fish that didn't find its place in the main motif, I used the inside of the card on which I added a couple more stones.

What my card turned out to be in the end:

And the original that started it all:

A little contribution to the July collection of Create in Austria - artwork created by Austrians and/or in Austria. And a little more maritime inspiration: fish in Ljubljana old town :)

challenges: 
- 613 avenue create: ATG
- a bit more time to craft: ATG
- gem of a challenge: animals
- basteltraum: water
- brown sugar: ATG
- cardmania: summer fun
- cardz4guyz: beside the sea
- craft-alnica: card for your own soul
- crafting with an attitude: ATG
- crafty calendar: ATG
- crafty sentiments: ATG
- craftyhazelnutspatternedpaper
- friendship challenge: summer, sunshine, beach & sea
- kreativtanten: colour challenge
- little red wagon: wet & wild
- love to craft: ATG 
- pennys papertake: ATG
- scrapping4fun: birthday
- sunny day crafting: A for animals
- crazy challenge: animals
- sketchy challenges: summer
- through the craftroom door: ATG
- wortartwednesday: ATG