Two of my friends have birthdays today, so I have two cards to share this morning (you can probably tell I was in a bit of a rush to post them on time from the rushed photography!!)
For some reason all of my friends feel a bit down at the moment – maybe it’s just the time of year. They are all looking at their lives and wondering “what’s the point of it all?” and “Why am I bothering?”, so I wanted all of the cards I give them to have positive messages to hopefully give them hope to keep going.
The first card I want to share is a masculine card. Some cardmakers find men hard to create cards for, so hopefully this will help inspire you for a masculine card – either a birthday or good luck or congratulations card.
I started with some watercolour cardstock by Crafters Companion, my Distress Inks and round blening tools. The Distress Inks I ended up using were: Mustard Seed, Picked Rasperry, Evergreen Bough, Faded Jeans, Chipped Sapphire and Black Soot.
First off I added some areas of Mustard Seed, Picked Rasperry and Evergreen Bough to the watercolour card, just in random areas, and not covering the whole piece of card.
Next I added some Faded Jeans around the edges of the card and around the more intense areas of colour to make the night sky. After the Faded Jeans I went over the card with lots of Black Soot to darken the card and only leave a few areas of colour.
Then I used a fan brush dipped in water to create splashes on the card, which I dabbed off with some kitchen roll. This created the appearance of stars. I did end up with too much water on one area, so I dried it and went over some of it with Chipped Sapphire and Balck Soot to bring back the appearance of the dark space with only a few stars.
To add more stars I used a small round shaped brush to flick Gesso mixed with water over the card. Once the card was dry I removed the Washi Tape from the corners and went over the corners in Chipped Sapphire and Black Soot.
For the sentiment I used VersaMark ink and ‘Seafoam White’ embossing powder by Papermania. The stamp set is by Stampendous called ‘Typewriter Alphabet’.
I die cut some of the smaller stars from the My Favourite Things ‘Lucky Stars’ Die-namics set from white card stock. I also used the Crafters Companion ‘1″ Alphabet Contemporary Uppercase’ dies to cut ‘stars’ from white card. I adhered them all to the watercolour card with Nuvo Glue Pen and then attached the panel to the front of a cream C5 card blank with roll-on glue.
I really like the way this turned out, and I would definately try it again, maybe with different colours on the base to change things up.
There are several YouTube videos on different ways to create this look including from The Craft Bunny, K Werner Design and Scraps and Stamps. Check them out!
Happy Crafting everyone!!
rustyblue85 