The Crafty Den: Shark Week 2025 IG Card Hop

Hello friends, I hope you're all doing ok and having a great week so far. I'm taking part in the third annual IG hop to celebrate Shark Week. The card hop is hosted by my good friend Kelly and today's hop will showcase some fintastic cards featuring all things shark to celebrate Shark Week. Our theme this year is “Stay JAWSitive”; a reminder to stay positive in all areas of life, while also promoting awareness around ocean conservation and marine life. Dive in and enjoy the creativity and inspiration!

I found a shark set that I hadn't used before so grabbed it for this year's hop - unfortunately it was from Heffy Doodle, which has now sadly closed, but it's such a super cute set I had to use it. There are so many fun shark stamps available and I cannot wait to see what my fellow hoppers have used this year. I hope you like my card.

Here is my card:

A closer look at my friendly sharks:

Plus I decorated the inside:

I began by stamping all my images onto alcohol marker friendly card and coloured them with Promarkers. I don't have the coordinating dies so I had to fussy cut them out. I also wanted one shark to face the opposite way so used my mirror image stamp to accomplish this. It's not perfect but once it was coloured in I think it looks fine. I cut a white panel 4" x 5 1/4" and using a wave stencil and sea glass ink created my background. I took a stitched hill die and cut two 'sandbanks' from kraft card for the bottom of my panel, which I added with liquid glue. I wanted a frame for my ocean so using an arch die I cut an aperture, added foam squares behind and adhered it to my stencilled background. I stamped my sentiments from two different stamp sets in black ink and cut them out with sentiment strip dies. I adhered the smaller images with liquid glue, except for one of the sea kelp, which I added behind the frame with foam squares. The sharks and sentiments were added with foam squares too. I finished off with some raindrop embellishments as I thought they looked a little like bubbles. The panel was added to my card base with double sided tape. For the inside I cut a large arch shape and using the ink left on my blending brush lightly blended over the whole panel. I also cut one more sandbank and adhered it with liquid glue. I stamped the sentiment in the centre with black ink and adhered another shark and also a sting-ray with liquid glue. The arch was added to my card base with liquid glue.

We are also sharing fun and interesting shark facts in our instagram posts so I thought I would add one here too:

Shark Skin Is More Like Teeth Than Fish Scales

Sharks may look sleek and smooth, but their skin is actually made up of tiny v-shaped scales, also called dermal denticles, which are made of an inner pulp cavity and an outside layer of dentine, an enamel-like material (just like our teeth). With their scales being more similar to teeth than typical fish scales when a shark loses a denticle, it can actually fossilize over time, just like ancient shark teeth! In addition to being just plain cool, these scales also help decrease drag and turbulence, allowing sharks to swim faster and more stealthily while hunting for prey.

I would like to enter my card into the following challenges:

* to be updated *

Please swim on over to IG to see the amazing shark creations. Please use the hashtag #3rdannualsharkweekcardhop to find all the cards in the hop.

Enjoy the rest of your day and thanks for stopping by.

Love and hugs,