Under the Sea Invite

I had been thinking of ideas for my daughter's Under the Sea birthday party invites.   Well, before I go on, let me just say that it was a good thing I only needed 18 invites or I would have been way over my head! 

Well, this was a case where it took one product to get things in motion!  I found these Martha Stewart Crafts glass microbeads on clearance at Michael's for $2.50 per bottle.  I got the blue and the green.  I decided to do a rectangle card and use my Fiskars wave border punch across the top of the front of the card.  Then, I cut a second sheet but only about 1 1/2" wide and border punched it.  I ran all of those through the sticker maker and then poured a mixture of the glass beads on top.   This turned out pretty good!  Pictures below show those steps.

Then, I cut another 1 1/2" strip and border punched it.   I glued the beaded strip on top of the card front, just under the waves that were punched in the card base.   Then, I glued the next, plain green strip on top of the beaded strip.  My next layer was a piece of Bazzill double dot paper, cut down to about 4x4" and again, border punched across the top.   Once I did that I thought, 'oh how cute real sand on the ocean floor would be' so, I used my ATG and added a small strip of glue to the bottom of each, with a little curve to it.  I had some real sand that my little sis (Crazy Cricut Lady) gave to me and she also had the idea of adding gold glitter to give it a little sparkle.   So, there I went.

This is the final layer with the sand added.  But, I couldn't stop there when it came to added some visual texture!  I had this decorative cord that I got on clearance a couple of years ago, after Christmas.   It's feathery and I usually use it for wrapping BUT, when I cut the 'feathery' pieces back, it looked just like seaweed when it was attached to the card!!!   Woohoo!

So, then my Cricut cuts.   Using Life's A Beach, I cut the mermaid at 3" in a light yellow paper, her tail from Coordinations paper, her hair from kraft paper and then her top and flower using a solid pink.   I added aqua colored Stickles to the scales that cut on her tail and then I inked it so that you wouldn't see the yellow of her body.   I added a green pearl to her flower and inked in her facial features.   I pop dotted her on but, used a little glue to glue down her hands (so her arms wouldn't get ripped off). 

I cut the coral from the LAB cartridge as well but, I found that it was easier on my machine (AND ME) to cut it at 4" and then cut them apart to make them smaller and use them on several cards instead of just one.  I added yellow and orange stickles to some and then red pearl paint to the third, one for each card.   The inside says "Mermaids and fishes under the sea are singing Happy 4th Birthday to Avarie!!!   You are O-fish-ally invited to:"