"My Thoughts Exactly Thursday" (part 2) : Birthday fishes

This is post #2 for the My Thoughts Exactly Thursday, so if you missed post #1 just scroll down...
I took tons of pics and thought it would be better to separate in 2 posts...
First let me tell you I am in LOVE with this card! I hope I don't toot my own horn too often, but it's not everyday that my card comes out exactly the way I wanted it!!... So I am so thrilled about that! ;-)

When I saw this koi fish in the Asia collection of Lettering Delights, I knew right away I would use it... If I ever had my dream house one day it would have a zen garden with a pond with fishes... :-)
But back to my project... ;-P Please bear with me for the load of pics...

I cut out windows in my card front and background paper with Nestabilities, and used blue vellum paper as my "water"...

To have this as a true window, I used the same background as the card's front (origami paper) on the inside to have a finished look...

To reinforce the "water feel", I crumpled my vellum paper before flattening it again, I just love all the wrinkles this created! :-)

For my sentiment I used balsa wood and a Nestabilities tag, and stamped birthday Fishes from the Under the Sea set.

Don't forget to visit Alyssa's and Bee's blogs today for more projects with My Thoughts Exactly stamps! :-)

Father's day

I made this card for my Dad, inspired by Stamp TV's video of this week (Gina was making background paper using paper scraps and her sewing machine). I didn't use scraps but beautiful japanese paper that I cut in various width instead. I created a medallion out of balsa wood (cut and embossed with a Nestability). That inspiration came from Dawn who recently die-cut balsa with her PTI dies on her blog "my favorite things". :-D I then stamped the wood with a text background and my sentiment (both PTI).

I really love this card, the different texture of the wood is really interesting in real life. :-D