Swaps for Spring Fling - In Wilderness

I seem to be on a masculine kick when making cards recently. Anyway I wanted this set "In Wilderness" by Stampin' Up as soon as I saw it in the catalog. I love the realistic looking wild animals that the images portray. As usual I tned to shy away from coloring those images so as to not take away from them. Instead I usually do a great deal of distressing on them. I started with a Soft Suede piece, layered with a Very Vanilla piece which I crumpled up and distressed with Crumb Cake (formerly Kraft) and Soft Suede classic Ink pads. I adhered the buffalo to a smaller piece of Soft Suede which I anchored down with three silver brads. In an additional effort to distress the piece, I rolled the one edge around a paint brush to give the look of a poster peeling off a wall. I really like how this one turned out. All masculine and natural looking. This is one more of the swaps I made for the PhillyInker's Spring Fling.

Swaps for Spring Fling - Faux Silk

These are another bunch of cards I made for Spring Fling. These also feature Tempting Turquoise. The flowers are from the Hostess Level 1 set "Because I Care"
(102118). And the sentiment is from the SaleABration set "Bliss" (123217 - Clear). Remember that the only way to get the SaleABration items are to earn them! You may choose one SaleABration set for free with every $50 purchase (prior to tax and shipping) If you are intersted, don't delay, they will only be available through March 31st! I added a 1/4" basic Black grosgrain ribbon. Then the sentiment is punched out with the oval punch (119855)and matted on the Scallop Oval (119856). The technique is called Faux Silk. You stamp your image on tissue paper, and then crumple it. Then you adhere to your cardstock with the Anywhere (104045) glue stick.

Swaps for Spring Fling - Choo Choo

I decided to use a color I haven't used in a while for my Spring Fling swaps. Actually, I can't officially recall ever using this color, but here it is. The base is Basic Black cardstock with Tempting Turquoise (102067)layered on top of that. I ran the Turquoise through my crimper (101618) to give it the texture. The small Basic Black piece is embossed with the Square Lattice embossing folder (119976). The engine, from Choo Choo (113982) is stamped in Tempting Turquoise Classic Ink
(100814). And the sentiment is from On Your Birthday (111664) is stamped in Black StazOn . I topped it all off with silver brads (104336).

Metal on cards - Masculine card

I needed to create a Masculine card for one of the swaps I host on my Favorite MB. And my first thought was the great Motorcycle Stampin Up had available last year. Now I will say that I did see this card someplace else, and I can't remember the name of the gal that made it. I did however make some changes. Stampin' Up used to have great metallic papers, but sadly they aren't available. So I made my own! Here's how I did it.

First I took a piece of plain white cardstock and ran it through my adhesive machine. Then I laid that on top of some plain old tinfoil that I had in my kitchen and smoothed it out.

Once that was done, I trimmed it down to the size piece that I needed.

Then I ran it through my BigShot using the Square Lattice embossing folder by Stampin' Up.

Next I used my Mat Pack and pen to make marks where I wanted my large eyelets to go. (This thing is a lifesaver!!)

Then I used my Crop-a-Dile to punch the holes, and set the eyelets.

I wanted my image to sort of look like you were looking at the cycle on an angle so I stamped it kind of crooked.

Next I colored the cycle, and then used a Silver Pen to go along the edge so it had the appearance of a silver mat.

Then I matted a red (also made some Ballet Blue, which is now retired) piece of cardstock on top of some Basic Black, and did the same with the white piece which I had the cycle images on.

And Voila! The finished cards!

Just goes to show that there are things all over your house which you could use to make your cards with!

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial!