It's the last one of these I promise!

I have to stop making these stripey male cards, I promise this is the last. I will admit I was short on time (busy with work stuff) and this has been my go to design for the last few months so it's time for a change.

Here's the card:

This card was made for a friend's birthday.

Materials:
Cardstock: Always Artichoke, Basic Black, Close to Cocoa (retired), not sure what colour the orange is called - maybe Peach Parfait? Printed acetate (My Memories), Rough and Tough: Awesome (Kaisercraft).
Ink: Stazon black, Versamark.
Stamps: Best Dad Ever, French Foliage (Stampin' Up).
Accessories: Cappucino baker's twine (The Twinery), hemp twine (Stampin' Up), star charm (My Mind's Eye Stella and Rose - Hattie "Happy" Bits and Pieces).
Tools: Paper trimmer (Fiskar's), mini glue dots, glue tape (Stampin' Up), scoring board (Martha Stewart).

Tips and Tricks:
1. It's all pretty simple - cut and trim stripe layers to fit.
2. Layer the acetate on the cardstock with mini glue dots.
3. The charm was quite heavy so I anchored it to the card with a glue dot so it doesn't pull the twine down too much.

Stuff Ups:
1. The third layer (acetate on black) was cut slightly crooked which I didn't notice until I stuck it down. You can't really tell in the photo (yay) but it bugs me.
2. I don't know if I like the cappucino baker's twine on the card or not. It's a bit too much.

Pleasant Surprises:
1. Only having to stamp on the acetate once!

Another Male Birthday Card

It wasn't easy to photograph this card and catch all the details but I did my best! This was cased from an old catalogue like my last card but again I have tweaked it a fair amount. The layout of the card is what got my attention - the three strips of colour with a gap in between. I made this for my Father-in-law. It was his birthday last Friday.

Again, a couple of techniques that I wanted to try are on this card.

Materials:
Cardstock: Very Vanilla, Always Artichoke, Not Quite Navy, Cherry Cobbler.
Ink: Versamark Dazzle: Silver Frost (Non Stampin' Up but normal Versamark would be fine), Cherry Cobbler, Cherry Cobbler marker.
Stamps: French Foliage.
Other: Clear embossing powder.
Non Stampin' Up: Sophie's Sentiments stamp set by Lawn Fawn, Perfect Pearls Mist in Heirloom Gold, Fiskars corner rounder punch, Ranger Perfect Medium Pens, heat tool.

Tips and Tricks:
1. The first technique I tried was lining up my coloured card strips and stamping on them with Versamark. Then I adhered them to the base card with a gap in between.
2. The second technique I tried was stamping the sentiment in a pale colour repeatedly and then stamping it once in a bright colour. I used Versamark to do this and left a gap for the red sentiment. Then, for that red sentiment, I stamped it on the Versamark pad then onto my Cherry Cobbler ink pad before stamping on the card. I coated all the sentiments with clear embossing powder and heated them with my heat tool. You can just see the embossing in the photo.
3. The finished card was too clean for my liking so I spritzed it once with my Perfect Pearls mist. Once it had dried, I wiped over it with a tissue to clean any mist off of the embossed sentiments.

Stuff Ups:
1. The coloured card strips are not perfectly flush with the edges of the card. Some are a fraction shorter and that annoys me.
2. The sentiments are not perfectly aligned but it doesn't annoy me for some reason.
3. Maybe I should have used a different colour for the base (like Crumb Cake) so the sentiments stood out more. Then again I didn't want it to be reminiscent of the 'get well soon' card I made for my husband which features the same colours and stamp set.
4. I also don't like the flimsiness of Very Vanilla and Whisper White when it comes to base cards.
5. I am not convinced that Perfect Pearls mist was the right way to go with this card.
6. Also with the red sentiment, I didn't stamp it properly so I had to touch it up with a Ranger embossing pen and Cherry Cobbler marker.

My poor hubby!

My lovely hubby had an operation last week and I made him a get well card for his stay in hospital. This card was kind of a challenge as I had only a small bag containing my most basic card making items in it. I knew I wanted to use my new French Foliage stamp set and some colours from the Regals collection. I threw in some things that I thought would work and this is the result:

Materials:
Cardstock: Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla.
Ink: Always Artichoke, Not Quite Navy, Bravo Burgundy, Versamark.
Stamps: French Foliage, So Happy For You.
Other: None
Non Stampin' Up: Charcoal grosgrain ribbon, black rhinestones, Perfect Pearls Mist in Heirloom Gold, edge distresser tool.
 
Tips and Tricks:
1. After I stamped the card base, I spritzed the card with the Perfect Pearls mist for a nice gold sheen. You can see it above the sentiment layer where the camera flash highlights it.
2. I also spritzed the sentiment layer after crumpling the cardstock because it was too bare and new.
3. Some of the leaves have been stamped after first stamping off on a scrap piece of paper. This softens the colour and produces a lighter effect.
4. The Versamark has been used to stamp splodges from the French Foliage set over the leaves, on the sentiment layer and inside the card.

Stuff Ups:
1. I originally used the masking technique to create the background of leaves and gold spritz and left a blank centre rectangle for the sentiment but it didn't look right. Essentially, the Very Vanilla hides some mistakes. The Very Vanilla cardstock may be too bright and I could have used more Crumb Cake I suppose. I didn't have any with me and I like the Vanilla as it is.
2. The charcoal ribbon doesn't quite match but I don't have any black.
3. The placement of the rhinestones could be more precise.
4. I need to learn how to make pretty bows instead of snaggly lopsided ones!