A Fish Tale

We live close to a beach and so, we decided to take advantage of it with evening walks several days a week. We've been going on these walks for months now and nothing much exciting has happened. We would find a few seashells and call it a day. After awhile,I had decided to leave my camera at home. I am so sorry I did. Last weekend, a stingray, of rather large diameter, followed us along the shoreline for a bit. That might have been the end of things, but the next thing we knew, there was a school of puffer fish swimming around us at the edge of the water. We were wading knee deep and there must have been at least 40-50 of them. Some were caught by the waves and carried to shore.We quickly grabbed them and tossed them back in. We saw puffer fish ahead of us, also accidentally being beached, so we combed the shoreline, saving the ones we found. I was truly sad I had left the camera at home.

For our next walk, I made sure to take my camera. Sadly, no puffer fish or rays appeared. I still wanted to document the story though,so I snapped a shot of my son scanning the sea for a school of fish. I went online and found a vintage puffer fish print then set to work creating this layout.


Puffer Fish Rescue Patrol by Christy Strickler 
Supplies Cardstock: Colorbok; Stencils and Stamps: JBS Mercantile; Ink: Tsukineko, ClearSnap, Patterned paper: My Mind's Eye;Image from The Rusty Hodge Podge; Other: Book paper, glass beads, cellophane; Most items from my JBS Mercantile kit

I experimented with stamping for this layout thanks to the Second Floor Challenge at the Balzer Designs Blog. A day or so ago, I had created a page base using my newest JBS Mercantile stamp and some cellophane. I sewed the cellophane onto the page. I then came back, inked up a JBS stencil and used a brayer to create a stamped image. I used the same stencil to fussy cut patterned paper which I then adhered the hexagons to parts of the stamped design. If you are wondering about the purple ink, well, the puffer fish were purple.I wanted to have the color association there for my family.I also used a JBS chevron stamp on book paper with purple ink. I used a stencil to create the letters, fussy cut them out and then added torn bits of the stamped book paper underneath while allowing bits of the layout to show through.

I liked the added touch of the torn book paper beneath it.The stamp is faint, but the hint of purple ties in nicely with the purple of the stamped stencil. The tiny bit of text means I can add this page to the Simon Says Stamp weekly challenge. Well...and it is Stamptember too, so the second floor challenge this month is really apt!