Last of the Leo Birthdays

Happy Weekend, Artsy Folk! Honey and I helped my brother celebrate his 54th birthday last night with a nice Mexican food dinner and birthday cake, so I'll share the card that I made him, which he loved. He's a devoted Houston Astros baseball fan and as I have baseball stamp sets from Artistic Outpost and Technique Junkies, that became the theme!

As I do for most of my cards, I planned this one with a few different challenges in mind. My brain gets a little tingle when I can do that, but sometimes I get overwhelmed by it, too. My card front is texturally rich, with all the heat embossing and paper layers. Even the orange bottom layer is textured card stock.

 

(Click on the photos to enlarge.) I followed the current Mojo Monday Sketch #520, using a 5x7 (A7) Kraft card stock base. So as usual I resized the sketch in PSE and printed out. I also used DCWV card stock and Tim Holtz distress specialty stamping paper, as well as additional Kraft card stock. I used VersaFine Clair ink and clear embossing powder on the card front and Memento ink on the inside.

I took my piece of Distress Specialty Stamping Paper and stamped Technique Junkies Baseballs background stamp using my stamp platform to get good coverage. I clear-heat-embossed the entire piece. Then on a smaller piece of Kraft, I stamped a grouping of stamped text and embossed that. Then I stamped and embossed the glove and then I went to town coloring and tinting with my Distress Inks. I also used my ProMarkers here and there on the glove to highlight and shade.

  

Here are the baseball stamps I used by Artistic Outpost and Technique Junkies.

I wanted to show my Googled references for getting the Astros color combo right. This last patterned photo using their official colors helped me the most to compare it to my card. I think I got the colors pretty right!

I did use a little piece of white card stock snippet to stamp and emboss the baseball and left it white just for grins but also to lead your eye to the sentiment, as the front is pretty busy and has a lot for the eye to take in. I used an Avery Elle zig zag circle die to cut out the ball. And I used a Spellbinders Classic circle die to mat the glove on, coloring the edge with a ProMarker.

My baseball stamps have several wonderful phrases, so hey, I used almost all of them inside the card on the left hand side. On the right, I used sentiments by Papertrey Ink and Clear Dollar Stamps, leaving plenty of room for a handwritten message to my Bubby. This is his first birthday since our dad died and he always made them special for us so I wanted to try to continue that.

On the back, I used the baseball background again. I had tried the stamp on both surfaces and had the Kraft one leftover. A leftover snippet of orange with an EK Success siggie stamped on it finished the back.

For me, I think I have learned that the key to a good guy's card is honing in on their hobbies/interests, or referencing good times/memories. For my Leos this year I made a tropical beach card for a friend who loves visiting tropical places, a motorcycle card for a friend who loves to ride, a martini card for a friend with whom we have enjoyed more than a few, and this baseball card for an avid fan of the game. In each case, they were all appreciative of the thought put into it, like hey, you really know me and showed me. Only one of my friends is someone I could send anything handmade. Most guys are like, why didn't you just buy me a funny card, but they also know they could spend a week in the card aisle and not find something that individualized. Don't know if I explained that well enough, hope so!

After I took my photos of the finished card, I realized that the exclamation mark on the sentiment was a bit fuzzed (too much ink on it), so I took a gel pen in a matching color and defined it more clearly. Then I hit it with my heat tool for just a few seconds to set it so it wouldn't smear as it was on top of embossing.

I hope you liked my card and aren't wanting to strangle me for making you sit through all these photos and chat! So sorry - I got a little carried away! Thanks for hanging in there through the seventh inning stretch! heeheehee

CHALLENGES:
1.  Mojo Monday Sketch #520 - Sketch shown above.
2.  Outlawz Color Tuesdays: One Color (Beige) + Two Others + My Twist - Kraft Beige + Orange + Blue + Heat Embossing is my Twist, I always LOVE watching the powder melt!

3.  Country View Challenges August: TEXTURE
4.  Colour Crazy Challenge Week 31: AG with Colouring
5.  Di's Digi Challenge: Circles - Baseballs and circle mat behind the glove
6.  Use Your Stuff Challenge #370: Summer Activity
7.  Through the Craft Room Door for Aug. 13-19: AG - The TTCRD design team is celebrating Summer, so I'm celebrating The Boys of Summer! :-) 
8.  Outlawz Crash Your Stash Challenge: Embossing Powders
9.  Love to Craft Challenge #37: August AG
10. Crafty Creations #396: AG
11.  A Bit More Time To Craft #98: Always AG

That's it for me this sunny Saturday. Thanks for sharing it with me! XOX