I’ve always found it really difficult to make cards for men. Not any more!

Since I found Inspired by Stamping, and their fabulous masculine stamps, that problem is no longer there.  This card is for the Inspired by Stamping Masculine Challenge.

I know it looks complicated, but it was really easy, albeit a little fiddly.

Here’s how I made this card:

I started by cutting light blue cardstock to be a ‘backing’.  This would sit on the cardbase, so it needed to be a little smaller than the base card. Next I made a banner, by stamping IBS Background Basics Lines twice, in Stazon Timber Brown. This was done as the full length of the stamp. I put that aside for later.

Next I took another piece of white cardstock.  Just a half size. It needed to be slighly smaller than the blue cardstock, as it would sit on top of the blue.  I ran that through the Cuttlebug with Tim Holtz Textured Fades embossing folder called “Bricked”. Then I lightly sponged it with Vintage Photo Distress Ink, and also Stormy Sky Distress Ink.  The latter wasn’t used a lot, as you can see, but I wanted it there to pull all the colours together.

Again, this was put aside.

Next was the multi-coloured sheet. This was made using the ‘splotches’ from IBS stamp set Guitars. My original intention was to also use the guitars themselves, but as you can see from the finished card, that changed.

Here’s how I made that sheet:

I took both the splotches.  One was stamped randomly with Stormy Sky Distress Ink, and the other one stamped randomly with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. In both cases, I stamped them off on a scrap of paper first because I didn’t want the colour to be too intense.

Because there were a lot of open spaces, and I didn’t want that, I then took the ‘chicken wire’ stamp from IBS French Country Backgrounds, and stamped that using Vintage Photo.  If you look at the photo you can see one spot has the ink quite dark.  That was the first one I did – I forgot to stamp it off first.  For the rest, I made sure I did that.

This was done using a ‘technique’ I learned a long time ago.  It’s something Tim Holtz does regularly, and I always forget about it. You take your stamp, and basically roll it.  (Clear stamps are great for this technique.) Don’t add it to an acrylic block, because it won’t work. Just roll it up and lightly touch the stamp pad. If you want a lighter look as I did, stamp it off on scrap paper, then touch it to the cardstock, rolling as you go.  This way you only get a small area of the stamp, which is exactly what I wanted.

I repeated this process using the ‘squares’ – also from IBS French Country Backgrounds. Sponge around all sides with Vintage Photo Distress Ink, ensuring the corners are a little darker.

Now add the stamped sheet on top on the embossed sheet, placing it on an angle.

It doesn’t matter if it overlaps a little.

I then added my banner, which I ended up sponging all over lightly, and also around the edges, using Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I placed it going straight down, from the top of the embossed sheet.

The greeting was made using Everyday Tabs as the base, and the greeting itself was from Ahoy, Matey. (It fits perfectly inside Everyday Tabs, as you can see.)

Both were stamped using Stazon Timber Brown, then I stamps some ‘splotches’ from the Guitar set, using Stormy Sky Distress Ink.  I did this to again pull the colours together.  I did try it without them, but felt it was too bare when put with the rest of the card. It was then popped up with dimensionals.

Last but certainly not least, the ship was stamped using Pirates (again, from IBS). I stamped it on white cardstock with Stazon Timber Brown, then ripped around the edges. I then sponged with Vintage Photo Distress Ink around the edges, with an aim to highlight the tearing.

I then lightly sponged the ‘inside’ area of  cardstock.

Note:  I did purposely have part of the image not stamped.  I love the ghostly feel to this stamp, but I find if I leave a small portion unstamped, it’s even more ghostly.

Okay, that’s it.  Done!

Yes, it was a little time consuming, but I feel very worth it. I was back and forth with this card, because just over a week ago I ripped my arm open on a piece of metal, and had to have it ‘glued’.  They couldn’t do stitches because it was too jagged, so glue it was!

The result was that I haven’t been able to work on cards for a long period of time, so back and forth I’ve gone!

It’s almost healed now, so things will be back to normal very soon.

Thanks for looking, and as always, if you want to comment, and the comment box isn’t showing, click the title of this post and it will magically appear!