Masculine Challenge Card No. 7 – Best Catch

Hello, Crafters.

I hope you’ve had a super weekend, and are ready to face this new week feeling totally refreshed. Today’s card is the final card in my challenge for this week which was masculine cards. The stamp set I chose for today’s card is Best Catch, which has a co-ordinating set of dies called Catch of the Day. I also used the Well Written Dies for the HAPPY BIRTHDAY, and I die cut the little bird in that set and added it on the bullrushes inside the card!I didn’t have any pre-concieved ideas for a design, so I started with the fishing basket and the hat. This is the only part I’m not 100% happy with, and if I were to make this card again, I’d stamp these two images on Crumb Cake Cardstock (CS). I’m not beating myself up about it because I didn’t have a colour scheme in mind when I stamped the images!As I was colouring the two images using my blends – which I’d stamped with Memento Ink – a design for the card was gradually forming in my mind! The Blends colours I used are Light and Dark Crumb Cake and Soft Suede, and also Dark Old Olive for the leaves of the bullrushes. To give some extra dimension to the bullrush heads, I die-cut and adhered two more bullrush heads for each in Soft Suede CS.When I started arranging the pieces on my Whisper White CS card front, I knew that white was not the right colour and changed to Crumb Cake CS. Using the High Seas 3D Embossing Folder, I embossed the top Crumb Cake layer. I made my sandwich for my Big Shot by starting with the regular platform, the Embossing Folder, with the cardstock layer I’d sprayed with water, and the blue 3D Embossing Folder Plate.

NOTE: I can’t recommend this product enough! It’s brilliant, it’s inexpensive and worth every penny! The 3D Embossing Folder Plate isn’t in the catalogue because it’s new, but the product code is 149658, and the price in Europe is €12.00/£9.25. (Please check with your demonstrator if you live in the North American or South Pacific markets for the prices.)

Before I started adhering all my images I die-cut two large and two small fish in Pretty Peacok and Shaded Spruce, and I stamped them all with the little stamp in the Best Catch tamp set. I used mycraft knife on my self-healing mat to cut a slit between the lid and the body of the basket! After I’d slipped the two smaller fish inside – one heads first and the other tail first! I added a little bit of Tombow to hold temin position and then cut off the rest of the body that could be seen outside the basket!

I thought I was going to use two of the bullrushes die-cuts for the front of my card, but changed my mind. This allowed me to use the second one inside the card. I trimmed it down small enough to fit into the bottom right-hand corner without taking up too much of the writing area for the greeting.

If I had realised this image would end up inside the card, I wouldn’t have adhered the extra two bullrush heads on it. As you know, I don’t add anything that has depth to it on the inside of my insides my cards! The colour of the cardstock I used for the layers between the Crumb Cake card base and layers, plus the sentiment and the bullrushes is Garden Green. I think I’ve covered everything, but please let me know I’ve missed anything you’d like to know the answer to.

That’s it from me today. I’m off to the dentist shortly and shall be in the chair for two hours!! I broke one of my teeth just before my wedding, and my dentist replaced it with an amazing temporary partial-tooth. Today he’s taking it out and (hopefully) replacing it with a crown. I am not looking forward to this one little bit, but I will look forward to being back with you tomorrow morning! In the meantime, happy crafting.

JanB. xx

Products used: please click on any link to be taken to my 24/7 online Stampin’ Up! shop. Thank you. xx List