Hi Everyone!
I hope everyone had a restful holiday season and was able to celebrate the New Year – welcome to 2019! To kick off the new year, I have a brand new card video series for you. It’s called ‘Male Mail’ and is a series featuring more masculine cards. Of course that absolutely doesn’t mean to say these cards can’t be for girls too! I will run the series pretty regularly and to kick off, I’m focusing this first episode on clean and simple cards for the gamers in your life. I have three cards, two are pretty retro, and one a little more 21st century. These cards are relatively simple, can be made with stuff you probably already have in your stash, and don’t require any special stamp sets to make.
You can watch how I created these cards by visiting my YouTube or here:
My first card is based on a very familiar retro game. To create the card, I first created my shapes. The yellow character is a simple circle (I used the smallest from the Spellbinders Standard Circles Nestabilites but you can use any circle dies you have) cut from yellow cardstock and then a small segment snipped out.
My little ghost guys are hand drawn (I can’t draw but these ghosts are pretty simple) on red and blue cardstock with a Sakura finetip micron pen, fussy cut and then edged with a black memento marker. For the eyes, I added a blob of White Blizzard Nuvo Drops and then a smaller dot directly in the centre of Black drops (I used Ranger enamel accents but you can use Ebony Black Nuvo Drops too). I set them aside to dry (overnight).
On an A2 panel of Midnight black cardstock, I adhered the yellow guy with a foam square, and heat embossed my sentiment in white embossing powder – I used the Simon Says Stamp Simple Sentiments 2. I drew lines lightly with a pencil to guide my Nuvo Drops, and then added a path of White Blizzard Nuvo Drops. The cherries used a green glitter Sakura Gelly Roll and Autumn Red Nuvo Drops. I left the panel to dry overnight and then adhered the ghosts and popped it all onto a Neenah Solar White 110lb card base.
My second card is based on a well known current console. I created my shapes again first, cutting all of them from white cardstock, using the Spellbinders Standard Circles, as well as Classic Squares and Art Deco Ritz Labels (these are diamond shapes as I didn’t have a triangle, and I simply cut it in half). The ‘x’ is from the Altenew Bold Alphabet dies.
I adhered all of them to a panel of Catherine Pooler Designs Smoke and Mirrors cardstock using foam squares. My sentiment is from the Simon Says Stamp Tiny Words, heat embossed in white onto Midnight cardstock and die cut using the SSS Sentiment Labels die. I adhered it to the front, trimmed off the excess, and popped it all onto a Neenah Solar White card base as before.
My final card is one for someone who loved the old Atari consoles back in the day! It features the classic rainbow blend strip on silver, and I also added a wood panel to mimic the old wooden Atari too! To start I created the blended strip – I used a small panel of coldpress watercolor cardstock and blended Catherine Pooler Inks (left to right) in Tutti Frutti, Tiara, Grass Skirt, Something Borrowed and Juniper Mist. I then trimmed out a strip. The sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp’s Simple Sentiments and was heat embossed in white directly on top.
I trimmed out a strip of wood paper (from Ellen Hutson) slightly wider than the rainbow strip and adhered them together, and then adhered them directly to a panel of silver mirror cardstock. For my card panel, I took an A2 panel of Midnight cardstock, and added several scored lines using my score board (every eighth inch, 7 or 8 lines). I then popped the silver/wood/rainbow piece on top and popped the entire panel onto a Neenah Solar White 110lb card base.
I think this third one was my fave – I’m a total retro gaming nerd and I’d love to have gotten this card. Even if the recipient isn’t familar with these games or consoles, they’re bold and CAS enough to be a cool card.
I’ll be back with another Male Mail soon – I’d love to hear what you think of the first installment! All supplies are listed below, have a wonderful week!
Jenny x
Supplies
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