No Flowers!

A couple of male birthdays in the family, so no flowers today. I'm quite pleased with how this turned out - it's better than my usual cards for men - although it's not where I thought it was going when I started.

I embossed the background with the Distressed Stripes Cuttlebug folder. I wanted to try out the negative inking technique. So I used Versamark on the brayer to ink up the folder before putting in the green card stock. (It looked pretty good at that stage with the two different shades of green, so I did another one while I was at it to leave like that.) Then I heat embossed using brown powder. The slightly bumpy uneven finish that resulted goes well with the overall look of the card.

The card behind the words is cream with a linen finish. I used green chalk to shade it - also on the card body itself around the edges behind the background. All the edges were distressed.

The letters are computer generated. I used Burnstown Dam font which is a free download. Printed in a very dark brown onto lighter brown card, and then cut out by hand. The font has little dots to indicate nails holding the planks together, so I used some brass dressmakers pins and poked them through each dot. I then used my wire cutters to cut off the pin, leaving a tiny bit sticking out of the back - only about 1-2mm. I put a tiny bit of pva glue on each stump, and then stuck on my foam dimensionals over the stumps and glue. The stumps disappeared into the dimensional, and the pva makes sure that the pin heads stay put.

Finished off with three brads, and some leather cord.