I don’t know why, but I find making masculine cards hard, or at least harder than feminine ones. Which is odd since I live in a household full of boys and all my work colleagues are male! Something I should work on don’t you think?

The layout for tonight’s card is taken from this week’s Just-Add-Ink challenge. If you want a weekly challenge that inspires you to try new things – then this is the one for you. The design team are all amazing, each having slightly different styles. Check it out, there is still time to play along this week. The sketch we are playing with this week is shown below.

For this card I had a rough idea in my head, but I ended up cutting out a few different options and just having a play. The background piece is embossed with the Pinewood Planks embossing folder. Prior to running it through the big shot, I swiped some Early Espresso ink across the folder to give a bit of colour to the texture.

I stamped the Rhino from the Animal Outing stamp set using black momento ink and coloured it using Stampin’ Blends. I used the largest stitched square to cut him out, and also cut a stitched square in Early Espresso card stock.

The leaf die cuts are actually not Stampin’ Up! – I got given these a while back from a friend so I used what I had. As an alternative you could use the Leaf Punch (super easy!) or even the leaves from the new Rooted in Nature Stamp Set which has the coordinating Nature’s Roots framelits.

I stuck all these layers down onto an Early Espresso card base. The happy birthday sentiment comes from the Picture Perfect Birthday stamp set, whilst the words ‘big time’ also come from the Animal Outing stamp set. I heat embossed the sentiments with white embossing powder to make them stand out against the Early Espresso card stock.

For the inside I stamped a general birthday greeting from the Picture Perfect Birthday stamp set and also stuck an extra die cut leaf. As a side note – if you are looking for a versatile birthday stamp set, definitely check out Picture Perfect Birthday. It has a mix of large and small sentiments, some fancy fonts, a few decorations plus some background bits and pieces. Plus it is only $30! (AUD)

Product List

Animal Outing Clear-Mount Bundle

[148324]

$78.25

Animal Outing Clear-Mount Stamp Set

[146600]

$37.00

Stitched Shapes Framelits Dies

[145372]

$50.00

Pinewood Planks Dynamic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder

[143708]

$17.00

Early Espresso Classic Stampin’ Pad

[147114]

$13.00

Early Espresso A4 Card Stock

[121686]

$14.75

Whisper White A4 Card Stock

[106549]

$17.00

White Stampin’ Emboss Powder

[109132]

$8.75

Versamark Pad

[102283]

$15.00

Heat Tool

[129056]

$50.00

Smoky Slate Stampin’ Blends Markers Combo Pack

[145058]

$15.50

Old Olive Stampin’ Blends Markers Combo Pack

[144597]

$15.50

Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad

[132708]

$10.00