- Jun 8, 2017

Life’s too short, Enjoy the Ride!

TCW Mini Quatrefoil Reversed Paper Artsy Infusions Joy Crafts Retro Car

Hi everyone, today I have a set of fun mixed media guy cards for you all (with Father's Day just around the corner this might give you some inspiration)! I love how vintage and distressed looking these cards turned out.

To start my first card I die cut a piece of white card stock in the size I wanted with one of my stitched square Crea-Nest-Lies XXL dies. Then I partially stamped the Kaisercraft’s “Postmarks” stamp on a couple of area’s on this square with Versafine “Onyx Black” ink. Next I combined some texture paste and a stencil from The Crafter’s Workshop called “Mini Quatrefoil Reversed” on this square as well and let it dry (I love this stencil, it's so versatile!). After drying I started playing with my Paper Artsy “Infusions”, for this card I used the colours “Royal Blood” and “The Sage”: I added some of the crystals to my square piece, sprayed with water and dried when I liked what I had (if you don’t dry this stuff it will keep reacting with the water (meaning it will turn more brown instead of blue or green the longer you wait)), adding crystals, more water and drying until I was happy with the result, then I put it aside to completely dry.

In the meantime I started working on my vocal piece: I stamped one of the cars from the Joy Crafts “Retro Cars” stamp set onto some white card stock with Versafine “Onyx Black” ink and die cut a circle around the image with one of circle Crea-Nest-Lies XXL dies. I edged this circle with Distress Inks in the colours “Antique Linen” and “Walnut Stain”. I also die cut a larger circle with one of the My Favorite Things “Stitched Circle Stax” dies from some shiny dark blue card stock. From the same card stock I cut a mat for the square piece.

When the square piece was dry I edged with the same Distress Inks as mentioned before and glued this piece to the larger blue square with liquid glue and then put this combination into a book to dry because the water warped the paper considerably. It was fairly flat when I took it out after about three hours. For my next step I used the FineTec Pearlcolor in “Moon Gold” (from the custom made palette I ordered from the Coliro.de website) and started splattering. When I was done I set it aside to dry again.

In the meantime I worked on my sentiments: the Happy Birtday one is from a stamp set I bought in my local craft store and the “Life’s too short, enjoy the ride” is from a Stamping Bella stamp set called “Vienna and her Vespa”. I stamped them on white card stock with the same Onyx Black ink and die cut them both out with different sized banner dies from the Lawn Fawn “Everyday Sentiment Banners” die set. I edged them with Antique Linen as used before and also with Memento’s “Olive Grove” to let the green from the Infusions come back somewhere else on the card. I taped both sentiments together with regular tape, adhered them to the glued together circles and layered everything on the crème coloured card base (distressed with both Distress Inks as mentioned before) the way I had in mind.

And that finishes this first card!

For my second card I went through the same steps but used a different colour scheme: I used “Golden Sands” Infusions combined with Bistre “Mahony” and “Naturel” and I used some Distress Ink in the colour “Wild Honey”additionally on the banners.

For my third card I went for a slightly different design: I used a Deep Red stamp called “Early Motorcar” and a different stencil (from a local craft store) and I changed up the design a little by putting the banners on top. I also used Distress Ink “Faded Jeans” on the banners and used a dark green slightly shimmery mat between the crème coloured card base and the stitched square piece.

And for my last card I used Distress Ink in the colour “Aged Mahogany” on the banners and didn’t really change anything else compared to the third card design (except for the colour scheme of course).

This way I created a set of four slightly different (fun to make) vintage guy birthday cards.

Which one do you like best?

I would like to submit this project to the following challenges:

- SSS Monday Challenge: Masculine:

http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/mondaychallenge/?p=9379

- SSS Wednesday Challenge: Make it Masculine:

http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/simon-says-make-masculine/

- The Ribbon Girl June Card Challenge:

http://ribbongirls.blogspot.nl/2017/06/the-ribbon-girl-june-card-challenge.html

- Sweet Stampin' Challenge: For Dad's or Special Men:

http://sweetstampinchallengeblog.blogspot.nl/2017/06/for-dads-or-special-men.html

I made it in the Top 3 with this card: