Long Distance Love, for my daddy! AND a funny-but true- FISH story!)

Since I made a card for my ma, I HAD to make one for my daddy! I miss him SOOO very much and he is working SO hard!
As I've said before, it's no secret that everyone in my family (ESPECIALLY my daddy and I) love fishing! When I lived in vegas, before hubby and I moved here to the sticks, Uhm, I mean kentucky, My daddy and I would go fishing almost every sunday! he would come pick me up at the butt crack of dawn, and we'd go out on the boat. the days were always long, but fun... sometimes we would just stay out at the lake and sleep in our favorite cove on the rocks in our sleeping bags. No tent, no nothing! that was the real roughin' it for us :)
Anytime we went fishing, we always had my grandma's chicken salad for sandwiches, it was SO delicious!! I make some good chicken salad, but not near as good as grandma's!

One thing I've never learned to do, no matter how many times my ma and daddy have tried to teach me, is docking the boat. I can get it close, but instead of "lining up with the dock" I end up ramming it. LOL.
Well, this one time, (don't ALL great stories start like that?!?!?! HAHA!) My daddy told me, you are GOING to dock this boat!!! well, he went to park the truck and left me with the boat. yeah, I finally docked it!!!! WOOO HOOO!! but, tragedy struck and the engine died. (DUMM DUMMM DUMMMM) so, the boat was being pushed further and further "up" towards the boat ramp and the bottom of the motor was starting to scrape the pavement under the water. well, I tried and tried to start the engine (THAT, I did know how to do, it just wasn't working!) so, there was only one thing to do in order to save our propeller. I JUMPED into the water and pushed the boat backwards. YAY, I saved the day, and our propeller!!! yeah.... well when dad came walking down that hill, he was like WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN THE WATER???? I said well, it was either me jump in, in this WHITE t-shirt and my bra in front of all these old dudes, or we end up with a bent and busted propeller. he was just LAUGHING so loud, and some of the other guys around actually stood up for me! LOL turns out, I could have started the engine all along, I just got so flustered I forgot to flip the choke switch! :-/ UGH!! leave it to me to be a duffus! and this my friends, is why my daddy says I need to wear a special helmet. LOL anyhow, that day turned out to be a WONDERFUL day, and we caught LOADS of fish (including one 16 inch catfish and one 14 inch catfish--and that's NO fish story!) and we even enjoyed some of grandma's great chicken salad!!

Ok, enough of my boring old fish stories.
On to the card!
sneak peek, click clicky to see the rest of it...

   ~The card base is brown bazzill. some sort of cocoa, but I don't know the exact name. then there is gray bazzill on top of that, and then regular non-white textured cardstock that the image is stamped on, as well as the sentiment.
   ~I stamped the lighthouse from the inkadinkado 'down by the sea' set in chocolate chip ink.
   ~I ran the cardstock through my big kick with the stampin' up square latice textured impressions embossing folder, it came out nice!!
   ~I stamped the sentiment on regular white cardstock in chocolate chip ink and then punched it out with the decorative label stampin' up punch. I used my colorbox queue ink stack to ink the edges in brown around the sentiment as well as the white cardstock that the image is on.

   ~The whole card was distressed with the edge of my metal nail file (very sharp--does a great job!)
  ~I used a really thick 1/2 inch white grosgrain ribbon for the top, and tied it in a knot. I attached it only to the top layer of white cardstock.

  ~the top and bottom edge of the card was rolled with my thin paint brush.

for the inside of the card...
   ~I layered gray bazzill and then regular non-textured white cardstock on top of that, distressing both sheets on the edges and inking the edges of the white cardstock and rolling the top and bottom corner.
   ~In the bottom corner I stamped the seashells and reeds in chocolate chip.

   ~I stamped the sentiment from the stampin' up Occasional quotes in chocolate chip as well.

Here is a pic of the card on its back to show the dimension.

I have to make my daddy another card because his birthday is next month! I've gotta come up with something good!

On a side note, here are some pics of our fishing trip that day! and, the fish we caught!!! :D we couldn't put these bigger catfish in with the smaller fish because they kept attacking the other ones, so we had to keep them in a cooler of water on their own. something you don't see in catfish very often. :-/
This was back in 2002, I was 23 years old then :)

and here is my daddy...

and me with the baskets of fish we caught...

AND..... drum roll please!!!! here is my daddy with the 16 inch and 14 inch catfish! :D woot woot!!!!

I hope you like the card... and my fish story and pics! LOL :)
Keep on Craftin' and please, be kind to one another!
~Melisa Marie