Father's Day Card

In March, I had sent in two entries for a monthly contest that Stampin' Up! has for demonstrators. The category was "Man, oh Man!" and the theme was Father's Day cards. Well, I didn't win this time, but I did get my card on Stamper's Showcase, which is on the demonstrator website (it's a place for other demonstrators to get fresh ideas). That is an achievement all it's own. Hooray! I just found out yesterday. They must have known it was the weekend of my birthday! How nice.

So, in light of that happening yesterday, I thought I would talk a little bit about the card that I made. You can view and comment on the card here, at my gallery on Splitcoaststampers: Father's Day.

Copyright Stampin' Up!® 1990-2005

This card is a 5” x 5” square. I trimmed a half an inch off of the front of the card and used a silt punch to make a tab. The background paper I made myself using one of my favorite techniques. I ran the paper through a crimper twice in opposite directions. This makes the paper have a “weave” in it and I think it adds a nice touch. To distress it even further, I crumpled it up and ran my finger nail across the top and bottom edges. I love free tools like finger nails. Ha!

I also used a lot of the “direct to paper” technique. I ran different sections of cardstock directly over my ink pads. Distressing is fun, but it’s easy to go too far. I tried to go very slowly and only added a little ink here and there.

For the focal point I used a bit of glossy cardstock and stamped a few different images onto it. Before I colored them in, I used metallic pencils for a technique that is called “resist.” Basically, on glossy cardstock, a metallic pencil will resist any ink that is applied on top of it. So, using a light color, you can mark spots that you’d like to keep white. That’s how the border of the postage stamp remained white even after I sponged ink all over it. You can also get light colored pencils to come off glossy cardstock. I used a blender pen to do that (this might be helpful if you wanted to color in a resist area another color). Using the resist technique helped me to add shadows and light to an otherwise flat looking image. It helped me to make these images look more like pictures.

I used some black cardstock in this design--something I don’t do often and would love it if I would. I think it looks so elegant, but when I’m looking at a full sheet of black cardstock I think to myself, “What will I ever do with this?!” Ha! Well, I need to remember how nice it can look when you layer it with other cardstock. I think it’s just perfect here in this card.

I hope you enjoyed this card and it inspires you. I also hope you learned some new tricks for your next project. If you have any questions about this card, please let me know. I’d love to answer them!