Saturday, March 12, 2011

Hardworking Birthday

This card was designed for my brother for his birthday. This is a purely me card - no casing at all! I am pleased that I got to use a new blokey stamp set that I bought a while ago. I also made an extra one of these for my nephew as it's his birthday next week. These guys are in their twenties and thirties so I tried to make the card age appropriate.

You can also see how the summer sun and water restrictions have affected our poor grass - it was lovely and lush in the Valentine's photo, now it's almost dead. Thankfully it should grow back soon since the weather is getting cooler.


Materials:
Cardstock: Crumb Cake, Chocolate Chip, Brocade Blue (which is retired, you could use Baja Breeze instead), Very Vanilla and some Blueberry Crisp DSP.
Inks: Chocolate Chip ink pad and Versamark.
Other: Oval punch, Scallop oval punch, silver embossing powder, sponge, big shot machine, dimensionals, piercing tool, piercing guide and mat pack.
Non Stampin' Up: Sizzix textured embossing folder (probably 'burlap'), heat tool, screw top brads, Clear stamps 'Tools' (http://www.sullivans.net/ though I bought mine from Starfish Lane in Mt Lawley), 'Birthday wishes' sentiment from Wendy Irving Collections: Expressions Clear Cling Stamps -  'Occasions', distressing tool.

Tips and Tricks
1. I used a distressing tool to scuff the edges of the base card, chocolate chip and brocade blue layers.
2. I used chocolate chip ink to roughly sponge around the edges of the card base, the scalloped oval and the oval.
3. I put the chocolate chip layer up on dimensionals to compensate for the screw top brads in the top right corner. If you don't, you end up with an obvious bump where the brads are.
4. On the inside of the card I use another birthday stamp as the sentiment and another Tools stamp - a man pushing a trolley full of tools like he's in a hardware store. I used chocolate chip to continue the theme.

Stuff Ups:
1. I tried to stamp the inside of the card after I had attached the details to the front. The result was a messy. incomplete impression so I had to redo the base. Always stamp the base first!
2. There was a problem with the trolley stamp - one small portion was cut too thin so it didn't imprint on the card properly. I used a chocolate chip marker to fill in the mssing details.

No comments:

Post a Comment