Koi Carp and Water Lilies

Hi everyone.  Today's card is a birthday card which I made for a friend.  I do however have to apologise to her because I 've only just realised that I forgot to put a sentiment on the front.   Luckily I did put an insert inside with 'On Your Special Day', so Happy Birthday, Marilyn.

For the card I used a set of stamps which have already had an outing on here.  It is a set by Sheena Douglass called A Little Bit Oriental.  There is a large Koi, which I used last time, and a smaller Koi which I stamped twice for this card, together with the floating Lilies and the second largest Water Lily, used three times.  The other two stamps used were a couple of the ripple effects.

I began by selecting my usual square card in cream - as you can probably see this is my favourite shape at the moment.  I decided to back the focal layer with a dark blue which I obviously did at a later stage.  I then took a piece of white stamping card and covered this, using the acrylic block technique, with three colours of ink, namely Tumbled Glass and Peacock Feathers Distress Ink and Memento Nautical Blue.  I then took some snippets/scraps of white card and using Memento Tuxedo Black stamped out the two Koi and the three Water Lilies and coloured them with Promarkers in a selection of about six colours.  I only have a pack of eleven colours with a blender so I don't have a great deal of choice. but I manage.  I then returned to the background after decided where I would place the Koi and Water Lilies and then stamped the water ripples in Memento Nautical Blue.  I decided when placing  the Koi that it might be quite fun to have one fish with it's head out of the water so I cut that one down and placed the Water Lilies around it.  I then, as mentioned earlier, mounted this on dark blue card, and then mounted that on my cream base card.

Thank you to everyone who stops by, and hope you all have a good week. 

I have decided, as this uses a few snippets, to enter the challenge over at Pixies Crafty Workshop.