Easy Clean & Simple Ocean Card You’ll Love! | Featuring the Sea-ing Is Believing Stamp Set

Hello, crafty friends! Today I’m sharing a fun, clean and simple card that feels like a little dip into the ocean. Sometimes, when I'm creating a card, I find myself torn between wanting all the details — coral reefs, colorful fish, maybe even a shipwreck — and wanting that fresh, simple look that really lets one beautiful image shine. If you’ve ever felt the same way, this card is for you.

I’m featuring the Sea-ing Is Believing Stamp Set and Sea-ing Is Believing Die Set from The Rabbit Hole Designs, along with a few extra touches to create a dreamy underwater scene that's crisp, bright, and beautifully simple. Let’s dive into how it came together.

Easy Clean & Simple Ocean Card You’ll Love! | Featuring the Sea-ing Is Believing Stamp Set:

Creating a Focused Ocean Scene

One thing I love about ocean cards is that they can be as simple or as detailed as you want. But when you want a design that feels peaceful and uncluttered, the trick is choosing one main image to be the star and letting it have plenty of breathing room.

For this card, the adorable jellyfish from the Sea-ing Is Believing set immediately caught my eye. Jellyfish are such magical creatures — floating and glowing softly in the water — and I wanted to capture that feeling without overwhelming the card.

I stamped the jellyfish onto a piece of X-Press It Blending Card using Memento Tuxedo Black Ink, then colored it with my OLO markers. I started with OR4.2 to lay down the brightest color, then blended out with R0.2 and softened even further with R0.1. This gave me that soft, luminous look that jellyfish have naturally.

Pro Tip: When you want to keep your coloring looking light and airy, always start with your darkest shade sparingly and blend outward. Using more of your lighter shades helps create a soft, glowing effect without heavy color buildup.

After coloring, I used the coordinating die to cut out the jellyfish, setting it aside while I worked on the background.

Soft Ink Blending for a Gentle Ocean Effect

For the card base, I used a top-folding A2 card made from Neenah Ultra Thick Cardstock. To keep the ink blending contained and clean, I added a strip of 1" Mint Tape across the card base — masking off the bottom portion where my sentiment would eventually go.

I blended four shades of Distress Ink across the top portion: Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Salty Ocean, and Uncharted Mariner. I love this combination because it mimics the natural gradient of the ocean — lighter and brighter near the surface, deeper and richer as you go down.

Once the blending was done, I added some simple underwater texture. Using the coral and seaweed images from the stamp set, I lightly spritzed them with water and stamped into the inked area. I repeated this process twice for a few of the images to create some soft, ghostly impressions. I also added the tiny fish the same way to fill out the scene.

Pro Tip: When you spritz your stamps with water before pressing into Distress Ink, you get a lovely bleached look that adds dimension without layering heavy colors or lines. It’s perfect for soft backgrounds that stay in the background.

Pulling It All Together

Once the background was dry, I carefully peeled away the Mint Tape — my favorite part — to reveal that nice, crisp line. Below the blended area, I stamped the sentiment "Sea-ing Is Believing" in Versafine Clair Nocturne Ink for a strong, crisp impression.

Next, I added foam adhesive to the back of my jellyfish and placed it right onto the center of the blended ocean. Popping up the main image like this helps draw your eye right to it and keeps the design feeling fresh and modern.

To finish everything off, I added tiny white gel pen highlights to the jellyfish to give it that little extra sparkle. I also dotted on some Snowflake Glitter Pops of Color for subtle shimmer, and finally, sprinkled a few Clear Sparkle Enamel Dots around the sentiment.

Those final little touches really brought the whole card to life without making it feel crowded.

Why This Design Works

The reason this card works so well is because it’s simple, but still interesting. By keeping the focus on one adorable image and using soft, blended texture behind it, the card feels calm and clean — exactly like floating in the ocean.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed trying to create detailed scene cards, I encourage you to try this focused approach. Pick one image, add some soft background interest, and let the card breathe. You’ll be amazed at how polished and professional your results will look.

Final Thoughts

Clean and simple cards don’t have to be plain or boring — they can still tell a beautiful story. This ocean card has just enough magic, movement, and sparkle to make it feel special, but it stays easy and fun to create.

If you give this style of card a try, I’d love to hear how it goes. Happy crafting, and until next time, keep creating what makes you happy!

Thanks for dropping by today I hope that you found a little spark of creative inspiration with my project today. Wondering what I used in this project? Everything is linked to multiple sources in the thumbnails in the Materials Used section, or in the text below. Compensated affiliate links used when possible.

Materials Used:

Here you will find the list of supplies that I used to create today's card. All supplies are linked to supply sources below. Compensated affiliate links may be used at no cost to you.

Happy Stampin'

Rick Adkins

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