Beloved, I only love thee!

Sharing a card I made for my manager to celebrate his recent engagement, featuring a Some Odd Girl image called Best Man.

We all know guy images don’t sell as well as female ones and inclusion is only slowly seeping into the crafting world.  Luckily Kristy does some awesome male images and this one didn’t even require any merging!  I did trim the hair off both though as my manager and his fiancé have shaved back and sides.  I also did this image twice as the first time I didn’t do enough internet stalking to realise which of the couple were taller and I had the dark hair and beard on the wrong one.  It was a good mistake in the end though as it meant that I switched out the colourful image for a black and white one, which I think suits my card more.

I wanted to make the card elegant as my manager isn’t over-the-top camp and also wanted it to be special given this isn’t a simple, once a year event of a birthday.  The gate fold prompt at Back to Basics and Beyond was enough to inspire some creative, layered die cutting.  Combined with the optional twist of a shaker card at 613 Avenue Create! and suddenly I had a great base for my image.  What I didn’t have is any engagement sentiments, not a stamp or a die in sight with the word on it.  I did find two lovely sentiment stamps though and used one in my shaker window and one on the inside flap.

For a bit of interest, I did my shaker sentiment in red ink, which I then embossed in clear embossing powder.  To echo the ‘wishes’ of the sentiment I used some glitter, seed beads and tiny sequins in white and clear for my shaker.  I also added one of the gorgeous chippies from Make it Crafty just to fill some of the space on my designer paper half of my card, without adding anything too girlie or fussy.  Again, I used red and black, but as the background was black, I did the shadow in red and the top layer of the chippie in black.

Over at Crafty Cardmakers they have a 3-2-1 recipe theme going.  I have three sentiments, two stamped ones and the chippie one.  My two element is dies, the edger and the shaker frame.  Finally, I have one image although technically I have two of the one element as I also used only one designer paper.

This card took me a while as I struggled to come up with any ideas given the limited number of images available and some of the really tacky things I’d seen on Pinterest.  But once I looked over the challenge blogs and got some inspiration there it came together quite quickly and I am really pleased with how it turned out.

Ingredients:

Copics

W00, W0, W1, W2, W3, W4, W6, W8

Chalks & Powders etc

Stampendous! Embossing Powder ~ Detail Clear

Dies, SVGs & Templates etc

Uniquely Creative Dies ~ UCD1765 Stitched Scalloped Circles

Whimsy Stamps Dies ~ WSD418 Envelope Edgers

Embellishments

Make it Crafty Chipboard Single Layered Words ~ XOXO

Sequins & Seed Beads from stash

Inks & Paints etc

Stampin’ Up! Stampin’ Pad ~ Basic Black & Real Red

Papers

Bazzill Card Shoppe Cardstock ~ Marshmallow

Bazzill Prismatic Cardstock ~ Black

Making Memories ~ Wedding

Tim Holtz Idea-ology Kraft Metallic Cardstock ~ Silver

Stamps

Altenew ~ Beautiful Inside (hearts)

Some Odd Girl ~ Best Man

Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Collection ~ CMS182 Random Quote

Stampin’ Up! ~ Dandelion Wishes (sentiment)

Challenges

613 Avenue Create! #221 ~ Anything Goes w/Optional Twist: Create A Shaker Card

Back to Basics and Beyond #27 ~ A Gate Fold card

Crafty Cardmakers #233 ~ 3-2-1

Thanks for stopping by!

Farewell has a sweet sound of reluctance

Sharing a CAS card featuring a couple of stamps from the Dandelion Wishes set by Stampin’ Up!.

Needed to make a farewell card for a colleague who is moving interstate.  I actually only received the Dandelion Wishes set in a recent order and I’d picked it up with my Stampin’ Rewards as thought it would be good for all sorts of best wishes cards including farewells.

So I knew I wanted to use this set but wasn’t really sure what to do on my card until I saw the monochromatic challenge at ARTastic.  Combined with the embossing theme at CAS on Friday and I had my design worked out.  I stamped my image in VersaMark ink on a piece of coloured cardstock and embossed with Hero Arts White Satin Pearl embossing powder.  This powder leaves the colour underneath visible but gives a lovely shine.  I did stamp the sentiment in a slightly darker shade of blue grey so it would show up but added in some clear embossing powder to give it some shine and texture too.  Wasn’t sure if I used the White Satin Pearl powder again if it would go back to being a bit too pale to see.

Over at Southern Girls they’re looking for flora or fauna on your projects.  I know they are often just thought of as weeds but dandelions are the most fun flora when you are a kid.  Have to admit I still love blowing on a dandelion even if the adult in me can’t help but think of the extra weeds someone’s going to have to deal with as a result!

Ingredients:

Chalks & Powders etc

Hero Arts Embossing Powder ~ White Satin Pearl

Ranger Embossing Powder ~ Super Fine Detail Clear

Embellishments

Close To My Heart ~ Bitty Gems

Inks & Paints etc

Tim Holtz Distress Ink ~ Weathered Wood

Tsukineko ~ VersaMark

Papers

Bazzill Card Shoppe Cardstock ~ Marshmallow

Stampin’ Up! Cardstock ~ Balmy Blue

Stamps

Stampin’ Up! ~ Dandelion Wishes

Challenges

ARTastic ~ Monochromatic

CAS on Friday #153 ~ Embossing (dry or heat)

Southern Girls ~ Flora and Fauna

Thanks for stopping by!