Make It Monday #261

This week over at Papertrey Ink Blog, Betsy Veldman gave us some tips for using our floral stamps to create a masculine card in her Make It Monday #261 Video.  For the card I created, I used Friendly Flowers Stamp Set in addition to a sentiment from Mums the Word, some of the stamps, stencils and die cuts from the Color Pop: Autumn Kit and even the acorns from the Give Thanks Stamp Set.

I selected a piece of patterned paper in a stripe from some of the samples that have been sent to me in cards from Papertrey Forum Members. I don't have any wood grain paper like Betsy used so I had to find a substitute and felt the colors would work great for my project.  I should probably tell you up front that I did try to use cream cardstock for my stamped and die cut pieces but the one I have is not from Papertrey Ink and I felt that it was too yellow to work here so I opted to go for the white.  I cut about a third of the striped paper off so that I would have an area that naturally drew the eye.  I attached the striped paper to a top folding card base made from Ocean Tides Card Stock.

I started by die cutting the different elements I was planning to use.  I cut the two largest leaves from the Color Pop Autumn Kit and then I used the stencils from the kit to sponge on color in Melon Berry and Ocean Tides.  The detail layer was stamped on the die cuts in Americana and Pine Feather Inks.  I really love the way these colors worked with the sponged color.

Next, I cut several circles with the My Favorite Things Stitched Circles Stax Dies and stamped them with one of the flower stamps from Friendly Flowers. Since I used a circle instead of the flower shaped die cut, they just look like spokes and not really like flowers at all.  It's just another way to stretch your your stamps. The colors I used for this are Dark Chocolate and Ocean Tides. I tried several colors such as Kraft, Cocoa Bean and Fine Linen but I felt the Dark Chocolate looked the best with my other color choices.

For the last two elements, I stamped the acorns from the Give Thanks Stamp Set, also in Dark Chocolate, and the greeting from Mums the Word in Pine Feather Ink.  I used an acrylic block for all of the stamping except the sentiment and I did that in the MISTI so that I could double stamp it for extra crispness with no problems lining it up. I love having the option to use either but for things that don't need to be exact I still like using an acrylic block. I used the Number the Stars Banner Die to cut the sentiment out. I attached both of these elements with Foam Squares.

I really like the font from the Mums the Word Stamp Set.  The more scroll-y or flourish-y looking fonts just don't look as masculine as this classic one. I used one of these sentiments for my brother's birthday card and was happy with that result as well.

Thanks so much for coming by to check out my project.  I hope you enjoy my take on the challenge and will be inspired to create something of your own.