Our May challenge here on A Blog Named Hero is one of my favorite sorts because I. Love. Hero. Arts. Dies.  A lot.  I am kind of addicted to Her Arts fancy dies; making shaped cards with their larger dies is a true card making joy. And combining old and new stamps and dies with unusual and recycled materials–well, that’s great fun, too.  This card let me do all of that.

Here’s  how I did it:

1. The fishbowl is part of the Paper Layering Goldfish in a Bowl die set, which comes with a lovely, very detailed goldfish.  I planned on using that fish…until the April My Monthly Hero kit came along, and I simply had use the fish from the kit (and as of May 1st, there were still a few of those kits left!) Hero Arts has a lot of great dies and stamps that will be great fishbowl fillers. 
2. After stamping and die cutting the fish, I die cut the fishbowl twice from a piece of semi-rigid acetate packaging.  I could use acetate sheets made especially for crafting, but I do love to repurpose bits of plastic destined for our recycling bin!
3. Using a gel press print I made last year that looked quite water-like, I die cut a circle from it and used strong tape to adhere it to the center of one of the fishbowls.  I die cut a circle of the same size from white card stock, taped it to the back of that fishbowl, and stamped the “hello” there.  (It hides the tape and gives me a place for a note.)
4. I plopped the fish into the water, heat-embossed “I miss you” nearby in white, and added  just a few iridescent “bubbles” from my stash, (so that my fish could breathe!) 
5. Using very thin strong tape I stuck the second fishbowl on top of the first and added a silvery bakers’ twine bow over the tape line to hide that adhesive.  It not only finishes off the card,  which stands upright quite nicely.

And that’s the card–I hope you’ll try your hand at a shaped card or two and link them to our blog.

Can’t wait to see what you’ll make!