Hi all I hope that you are all doing well.

My crafting time is a bit up in the air at the moment – one of those times where there never seems to be enough time in the day, yet I cannot remember what filled the time of the day just gone!! I know I was busy, but what did I achieve lol!!

Any way , here is the latest project that I did. I noticed that I was running low on Cards for the fellas, masculine makes so to speak, so off I went to mass produce some male themed, generic cards.

Here is the first step of my project – a quick sketch in my crafting journal:

A quick idea I sketched in my journal.

I knew the basics that I wanted to achieve: I wanted the wooden elements to be included and I also wanted to use my Gorgeous Grunge stamp set from Stampin’ up!. Lets see if what I sketched is anything like what I ended up with lol!!

The first thing I did, was to pick ou the items and crafting products that I wanted to use. I picked my stamp sets, elements plus the basic tools that I would need:

My chosen colour palette.

I decided upon a neutral, earthy colour scheme as I did not want to just use Blues or Blacks.

The selection of stamp sets that I wanted to use.

Different tools and products that I used.

Once I got everything ready I got to it. I cut and scored all the card bases; I then used my big shot to die cut the cream panels for both the card front and the inside. Then I got to the messy and fun part of stamping. I had my stamp-scrub to hand, ready sprayed with stamp cleaner, as I knew that each stamp would be used with multiple inks.

I then went to work creating the card base using a large wood-grain effect stamp – mine was from Stampin’ up!- I used a green ink that went with the green base to achieve tone on tone effect. I did this on both front  of the card and also the inside. I wanted it to show around the panel edges.

I then stamped the front left of the card panel with an array of splatter effects with both first generation and second generation stamping. – A good way to make the inks you have go further! I then added stamp details in the darker green ink and highlighted this with an infill of the deep yellow.

The front of the card. An array of splatter effects and deeper stamped details.

As you can see, I added a wooden element to the card for dimension. These I have collected over the years from canvasses that I have bought ,and they have come with them to ‘tighten’ the canvas if needed. I inked them with the same stamp and inks that I had to hand. As I added the cream panels to the base with glue, I wanted a small amount of dimension without it making postage costs go through the roof 🙂 I love wooden elements – especially on ‘male’ cards. You could also achieve this effect by gluing several layers of Kraft  card or cardboard together and then stamping 🙂

The next step was the inside:

Several layers of stamping tie the inside of the card to the outside. the greeting is also a dual stamping technique.

I like to decorate the inside of the card too!! I think it’s a nice surprise to open the card and see that they match and extra time has been taken:)

I also love decorating the envelopes to have a matching set!:

Any excuse for more crafting lol 🙂

I hope that you have enjoyed this post and may be even feel inspiration from it. as always feel free to ask any questions and I welcome any feedback – +ve or -ve 🙂

Here is the final effect of this project:

All finished and package for safe keeping.

What do you think – did I manage to stick to my original idea lol?

Take care and happy crafting 🙂