Message in a Bottle

Hi everyone.  I have a card for my BIL today and for a change I decided to make a pop up shadow box card using a set of stamps and a stencil from Creative Stamping Magazine Issue 95 designed by Lisa Horton.  It's a pop up because you can retract the outer bars within the frame to fit flat into an envelope (mine fitted in a 6" square one) and obviously they will pop back out when you take it out.  I also used some Brushos for the background and to colour with.

I made the shadow box frame using a piece of A4 card cut in half for the back and front and scored two equal lines for the box sides and the pieces which form the handle, and cut the aperture from the front using a rectangular die.  I made the background using Brushos..Aquamarine, Turquoise and Emerald and made the wave pattern using Blueprint Sketch Distress Ink, and added the shoals of fish in Versafine Clair Nocturne Ink, and decided where to put the seabed and added it to the bottom.
 

I then stamped the bottle, anchor, starfish and shells using a couple of snippets of white card and more Nocturne Ink, and coloured them using the colours from above, plus Brilliant Red, Orange, Yellow and Dark Brown.  I fussy cut and added these to the background using some silicone glue and shaded across the bottle to give the effect of the seabed as seen through it, and also continued the stencilled pattern very faintly over the bottle too.  I should have added a bit of shading under the shells but forgot unfortunately, and finished by stamping the sentiment on to the bottle and finally the birthday sentiment on to the front of the box frame again using the Nocturne Ink and heat set using WOW Clear Gloss Embossing Powder.

 
Thank you for coming to see my blog today and I hope to see you again soon.

I am entering the following challenges:

Pixie's Snippets Playground Challenge - Where we use our snippets of card and paper etc.  (I used white snippets for the background and also the bottle, anchor, starfish and shells).
Stamping Sensations May Challenge - Anything stamped with the option of Floral or Fauna.
Allsorts Challenge - Week 674 - Anything Goes with the option of Scenic.
Addicted to Stamps and More Challenge - No. 428 Birthdays.
Happy Little Stampers May Watercolour Challenge - Anything Goes.
Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers Challenge - No. 209 U is for Underwater.
Simon Says Monday Challenge - Masculine.
NBUS Challenge - Where we use our Never Before Used Schtuff.  (I have not used any of these stamps before).