Folded with Care

My level 1 challenge is to make 4-6 masculine cards and 4-6 feminine cards, following a theme and using at least 3 of the lessons from Level 1 classes. The lessons I chose were

• Clean and Simple Boutique for the theme
• For the Guys – aspects of this class were incorporating nature, whimsical, interactive and geometric shapes
• Layering – even though the layering class described layering stamps I found that layering the 3D and Craft-A-Flowers used the same principles as when layering stamps.  Finding the match points of each layer is what makes these beautiful flowers striking.

I really like Altenew’s current large background stamps.  Many are geometric in nature which lent themselves to masculine or feminine cards.  For colors, I used purple shades for feminine and, of course, blue shades for masculine.  My general plan was to stamp backgrounds with these stamps, add strips of dark paper and glitter paper, a focal point and a sentiment.  I knew I wanted the layered flowers for the feminine cards but needed inspiration for masculine cards.

Then I found a hidden gem – I had a complete set of Altenew Sweet Heart Adhesive Wood Veneers! They would work well but I didn’t have enough for six cards that would be masculine.  Looking further in my stash, I found some wooden critters from Reflections including an octopus, a turtle, and a whale. These all would be fun to work with.

With my plan in place, I started mass producing backgrounds. By cutting 80# white cardstock in 4 ¼” x 5 ½” pieces I put one at a time in my Misti Stamp positioner.  For background stamps I used Pinstripe, Checkerboard, A Walk in the Woods, Shine like a Diamond, and Dainty Swiss Dots.  For blue shades of ink, I chose Altenew Starlight, Tide Blue, Turquoise, and Sea Breeze and for the purple shades I chose Andromeda, Ultraviolet, Hydrangea, and Wisteria.  I had some fun with the Ultraviolet and the Tide Blue, stamping them together on the woodgrain background from A Walk in the Woods, and this way there was another tie -in to each set of cards.  I also had some fun creating an Ombre look with the Shine Like a Diamond stamp by using all four colors on one piece of paper – one in the blues and one in the purples.  I stamped all my backgrounds at once.

That is until a week later…I woke up at 4 am thinking…that Turquoise and Sea Breeze colors are too light and girlish for masculine cards. The cards were already done…but never fear, after deciding that I would change those colors on some cards, I was able to fall back asleep.  I’d be surprised by any crafter/cardmaker who told me they didn’t dream about their projects at some point.  My new colors would be Distress Blueprint Sketch and Chipped Sapphire.

Now I had lots of backgrounds to from which to choose.  I cut them up randomly in different slants, horizontal, and vertical ways to give a variety of options.  I first played around with designs for the masculine cards.

• Card 1:  the nice large “happy” from the veneer set was put above the strips on the Woodgrain (A Walk in the Woods) and the birthday sentiment is from Altenew Mega Greeting 2 set was stamped directly on the card.
  • Tip: to be sure my stamps were straight, I lined them up on the card in the Misti and then stamped them on a scrap piece of paper over the actual card.  If I needed to adjust the alignment, I could do so without messing up the whole card.

• Card 2:  I loved the octopus but what sentiment would go with it?  I looked for something to say thinking of you or such and came up with a homemade mix.  The word ‘octopi’ was cut from small letter alphabet die by Love Nicole.  I used the ‘you’ from Altenew Shine Like a Diamond and cut a Simon Says Stamp Tiny Words to get ‘my mind’. 

• Card 3:  Sticking with the underwater creatures, I moved on to the turtle, again, creating letters with the same alphabet die set.  Then added ‘miss you my friend’ from Altenew Cross Stitch Flower set.

• Card 4:  The Wood Veneer set had the big word ‘friends’ which I combined with a sentiment from the Dainty Swiss Dots stamp set.

• Card 5:  I started this with a Sea Breeze background but changed it to the Distress Blueprint sketch.  I stamped a new white piece of cardstock and cut it to match the angle and size of the lighter piece then glued it over the lighter piece.  The whale is from the Reflections set of aqua critters and he just looked like he was smiling so hard that I had to use this sentiment from the My Favorite Things Party Animals set.

• Card 6:  The last card was a new creation after all the others were completed.  I liked the dark blue of Distress Chipped Sapphire with the checkerboard stamp and I used all the arrows in the veneer set to point up.  The ‘BRAVO’ sentiment was from Simon Says Stamp Greetings Mix 1 set.

The masculine card set almost was complete.  I felt the white space above the strips needed something more; I took Altenew Jet Black ink, squished it on my media mat and sprayed it with water.  I covered the rest of the cards with scrap paper then took a Tim Holtz splatter brush to the black ink.  I just ran my fingers along it to create a fine black splatter on the white space. To compliment the wood already on the cards, I embellished just a little by adding some of the wood veneer hearts from the veneer set.  One more tweak of taking my Altenew black Artist Marker to the silver glitter strips helped to take a little bit more bling and glitz off the masculine set.  Now, I felt like I could send any of these to any man or boy for them to enjoy.  Masculine cards are tough!

Continued in Part 2