The Boys are back in town...

Hi everyone,

So, this week, it's all about the boys. boys, boys!

I know it's a bit of a 'thing' that we as crafter's all share a dreaded fear of 'men's cards', but honestly, I think that's only because it conjures up visions involving generic images of golfing, fishing, cars, and gardening!  It doesn't have to be that way surely!  

I'm a massive fan of graphic cards, and love nothing more than a cool background with a bold sentiment - so that's what I went for.

I started with one of the cool designs from Mama Elephant's 'Zennith Borders' set, stamped it out three times, and heat embossed it in white powder to use as a resit.  I then washed over using various blue toned Distress Inks - Tumbled Glass, Broken China, and Salty Ocean - and set aside to dry.  I cut a panel of vellum, slightly thinner than my background, and, built up and stamped out this huge, awesome sentiment from Mama Elephant's 'Happy Everything' set, (still one of my favourite sets...EVER!), and heat embossed in Platinum Sparkle (...even boys deserve a little sparkle in their world!).

The Zennith Borders set includes a bunch of little geometric shapes that work alongside the different borders, so I took the little triangle from the set, stamped it out a load of times, and heat embossed them all, again, in Platinum sparkle.  I then cut the shapes out, and used them to build up the graphic design of the card.  I fixed my vellum panel to my background by adding tiny dots of glue behind each little triangle, so that nothing would show through the front.  

Now granted, this isn't exactly a 'butch/blokey' card, but that's kind of my point - does it really need to be?  I don't think so, and I know that any of the chaps in my life would be happy as Larry to receive a less stereotypical card!

I hope you like it.  As always, all the products I used are linked below, so be sure to go check them out.

See you next week.

Jillx

     

Make The Day Colourful...

Hi there,

I'd love to share a card I have made for this month's challenge going on at the awesome, Make The Day Special Challenge blog, which this time round, is a colour challenge.  Pick your palette, and go for it...

I chose those beautiful chilled out tones of the first option, and here's my card...

I used Mama Elephant's, 'Zenith Borders', stamp set to create my background.  I stamped out one of my borders, a couple of times, in Versamark, and heat embossed it clear powder.  I used Distress Inks, in Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Squeezed Lemonade, and Dusty Concord mixed with a little Victorian Velvet, to wash all over the top of my stamped borders.  Once everything was dry, I ironed the embossing powder off to create this kind of flat, batik effect.  I then used Mama Elephant's, 'Happy' die to cut right out the centre.  I also cut this die a few other times, on kraft card stock, and, using the double sided adhesive Stick-it, stacked the dies on top of each other, adding the coloured piece to the top, and inlaying the whole thing back into my panel for a really dimensional look.  I finished my sentiment by stamping out 'vibes' from Mama Elephant's 'Happy Everything' set, which is just A-MAY-ZING, a sentiment for any occasion. and just sooo cool looking, I LOVE it!!!  I finished off by embellishing with a few co-ordinating sequins and mounted the whole thing onto a kraft card base...and there you have it.

I'm really happy with how this card came out, which is a lot more down to Mama Elephant and there awesome products than me haha, but hey ho.

I'd love to know what you think, so please feel free to leave a comment.

Hopefully see you next time.

Jillxxx