Krafty-men .....

..... the challenge at CAS-ual Fridays this week is to create a masculine card using kraft!!  Easy - no!!  Not easy!  Well, that's not entirely true - lots of people have already made stunning cards, but it's taken me quite a while to come up with something.

However, I'm quite pleased with my card - even if it's taken me the whole week to come up with my design.  I've kept to kraft as the main colour with black as my neutral.

I started off by stamping the wonderful wood grain background from Way Out West by Waltzingmouse.  I stamped it in Versamark and then heat embossed with clear powder giving a lovely tone-on-tone effect.  However, I wanted to emphasis the wood grain effect, so I rubbed chalk ink all over the base card and wiped off the excess.  The result - a wood grain panel!  I stamped this lovely lighthouse and ship onto some more kraft paper, again using clear embossing powder.  I added some soft colour to the image with chalk inks and Stardust pens - it's very soft and subtle.  I cut out the image and mat with the funky wonky rectangles from Spellbinders, and mounted them at angles onto the card.  I added a bit of definition around the edge of the stamped image using Soft Suede.  Finally, I added an anchor and birthday sentiment.  Both started off with white backgrounds, but I added colour with my inkpad! 

Stamps:  Kanban - All Occasions
Inks:  Versamark; Stampin' Up! - Crumb Cake, Soft Suede; Colorbox Chalk Pigments - various; Memento - Tuxedo Black
Spellbinders:  Wonky Rectangles (S43-6) die # 5 and 6
Accessories:  Card, sentiment and clear embossing powder from stash

We're off to our local market today to see what goodies they have on offer.  Usually, there's a great selection of fresh produce, as well as some super clothes stalls.  So we'll have a little more girl-time and then stop for coffee!!  See you later!