I can't begin to tell you how much fun I had with this card! Not just making it, but choosing the recycled elements and getting it photographed, too! Let me tell you the story behind this special card. I started with this sketch by Michelle Stewart for Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge #164 (I will also be entering this in the Heart 2 Heart - Ties That Bind challenge featuring Father's Day themes). This is a fantastic sketch but I admit it took me a bit to figure out what I wanted to do with it, but when inspiration struck I was off and running -- and driving!
My daughter doesn't get into paper crafts but she asked if I would make a card she could give her dad for Father's Day, and together we picked out the stamps and papers to use. All non-recycled materials are CTMH products: both panels of paper as well as the zip strip beneath the triangle studs are from the Urban paper kit. The sentiment/badge was stamped with the retired Perfect Fit - Dad set using Sapphire and Saddle inks. I used the retired 2" scalloped punch and Saddle CS for the main part of the badge and I played around with scraps until I got shapes I was pleased with for the tails. To distress those pieces, I just swiped them back and forth over the edge of the Saddle ink pad a few times. Tip: I used the triangle border punch on the zip strip, fussy cut the edges to remove all the triangles pointing in one direction so I ended up with a "picket fence" looking border. Then I placed the triangle studs on the remaining triangles that had been punched out, and this made it much easier to keep all those little triangles aligned.
The fun part is that the tag the sentiment is adhered to and the 3-D looking strip above the triangle studs are recycled materials from my husband's job where he has worked for 20 years machining steel shafts into "pulleys" or what is better described as the rolling tubes that conveyors are made of, like the ones in luggage carousels at airports or the small conveyors you put your groceries on at the cashier's counter. Anyway, these are the shipping tags they use to on each palette of products they send out the door, and the 3-D material is corrugated cardboard; they get it in 3 1/2" tall rolls which they use to protect pieces that stick out at each end, and when I'm doing laundry I'm always finding unused tags and cardboard scraps in his shirt pockets.
Now here is the part I *really* had fun with... I do most of my crafting in the overnight hours while my husband is at work, which makes it hard to get good lighting to showcase the finished projects so I'm always trying something different. I only had 1 hour to spare when I completed the card and inspiration struck again... since this is such a masculine card and it actually includes elements from my husband's work, AND we live only 1 1/2 miles from his work place, I got in my car at 3:15 a.m. and went to visit my hubby during his last break of the night. Then with a little help from his coworkers to distract him for a minute, I was able to take a photo with the card sitting on a palette of finished pulleys that was sitting between the break room and the door - which is all the further visitors are allowed so I won't even get my husband in trouble, lol. Here's the photo of the card sitting on a palette of finished pulleys, isn't this a fitting Father's Day card for our "man of steel?"
Here's a photo of the inside of the card. I used the Day for Dad stamp set. I inked the stamp with Sapphire first, carefully wiped the ink off the images at the top and bottom and then touched the stamp along the edges of the Saddle ink pad to get just those parts in a different color. I also stamped part of the image on a spare piece of Saddle CS using Sapphire ink again and then fussy cut the banner from the image and adhered it over the banner already stamped on the card, so I could carry the colors from the front of the card to the inside as well.
Thanks for stopping by to take a look, and a special thanks if you actually read this whole post, lol. Happy crafting! ~~ Annette
