Masculine Cards

I always need men's cards and have made a few different, but similar ones here.  I used a French encyclopaedia that I bought at a boot fair when I visited my cousin in France last year.  The stamps are mostly from Katzelkraft apart from the text circles which are Crafty Individuals.

The papers were distressed with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and with my paper distresser.  The  pages are mounted onto embossed brown card using either the brick wall or tree bark pattern embossing folders.

Sorry about the glare here, it was a dismal day and I had to use the light.  All the images are stamped in black Archival and embossed in clear ink.

The bottle caps were crushed on my Big Kick embossing machine - which I discovered only after trying to bash them with a hammer (lol)  and made a big mess.  Anyway I stamped the circle travel text and the clock onto white card, punched them out and used Antique Linen and Vintage Photo Distress Inks to age them a bit.  After glueing them into the bottle caps I applied Glossy Accents all over and let them dry.

This one is done using two pieces from the book and I am sorry about the glare on the plane, it is black Archival.  These were so quick to do, apart from waiting for the Glossy Accents to dry.  They are not great works of art but sometimes you just need a quick card. Thanks for looking and any comments gratefully received.

Paint Job No 2

This is another piece using acrylic paint,  fresco finish by Paper Artsy, which has a lovely chalky effect.  I've been meaning to paint this for about a year and I finally got around to it!  I painted over the previous work as it was easier than cutting a new piece of wood.

I used gesso to begin and then did various fresco finish colours and  their Crackle Glaze, followed by more fresco finish .  The fish are a Katzelkraft stamp which was done in black archival ink onto Paper Artsy crackly tissue paper, then painted on the back using the other colours of the same paint range.  Some of the translucent colours were painted carefully on the front so as not to lose the black details.  When dry white pain was applied to the back to make the colours stand out.  The fish were then applied to the background using their Satin Glaze both under and over the top.

The next step was applying white paint through various stencils/masks before adding black die cuts  (Sizzix and Tim Holtz) with matt medium to finish it off.  I went through so many highs and lows making this both being very disappointed at stages and then slightly pleased (!) but in the end I am happy with it, it's not perfect but neither am I.

Thanks for looking and any comments are always really appreciated.

Anne x