WWC175 - Marsha's Masculine "Anything Goes" Challenge

I love our Masculine "Anything Goes" Challenge.  It gives me the opportunity to build up a stash of cards to which I can turn when the many men in our family have another birthday or a special event.  This week Marsha is our host for this challenge.

Just a reminder about our Design Team call which will end with this challenge, on June 25th.  I hope to see your card linked up with a DT so that we can consider you for our team.

For this week's challenge, I decided to use the new Sitting Pretty bundle.  Isn't that bulldog adorable?  I love him and the way you can either colour him from "scratch" or use the provided second stamp to colour him.  I decided to use a combination of Soft Suede and Crumb Cake because I have several bulldog friends with those colours.

I wanted an interesting background and so used the embossing framelit in the bundle to create that slate floor upon which he's sitting so pretty.  After doing the embossing, I lightly sponged over the slate with some Smoky Slate ink.  For the brick wall behind him, I used the brick stencil from the Pattern Party Decorative Masks and some of my white Embossing Paste (with a couple of drops of Sahara Sand ink stirred in).

Since this is a birthday card, I embossed the front of my Basic Gray base cardstock using the Polka Dot Basics ef.  The next layer is the beautiful new In-Color, Lovely Lipstick.  I used the Balloon Bouquet punch for my balloons, cutting the large one from a piece of Pineapple Punch and the smaller one from a piece of Lovely Lipstick.  The little heart is cut from Red Foil.

I loved creating the little birthday banner using the Duet Banner punch and the coordinating Thoughtful Banners stamp set.  My inks are, again, the Pineapple Punch and Lovely Lipstick.

I hope you'll check out the wonderful creation by the other Watercooler Artists at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge blog.  I look forward to seeing your creation linked up, too.

I'm also entering my card into the Stinkin' Inkers Challenge - The Guys Have It.

And also in the Try It On Tuesday Challenge - For the Boys.

Watercooler Wednesday Challenge #148 - Heidi's Feminine "Anything Goes" Challenge

Woo Hoo!  I get to host this week's Feminine "Anything Goes" Challenge!  I think it's such fun to come up with something distinctly feminine and this time I decided to make it Seasonal as well.

I love using the Beautiful You stamp set.  It's become one of my "go to" sets, especially when I'm thinking "feminine".  It's no surprise, then, that this card features one of the lovely ladies from this set.  As much as I've used the Beautiful You set, however, I've as good as ignored the Hang Your Stocking set which carried over from last year's Holiday Catalogue into the current Annual Catalogue.  I'm making up for lost time with this card.

I decided to make this a gate-fold card because it made it easy to feature my Beautiful You lady in a pretty oval.  Since she's the featured image, she gets to overlap both sides, keeping the "gates" shut.  As a background I heat embossed the stockings using White embossing powder on Basic Black cardstock.  I love the sharp contrast!

Because I used black, white and red for my featured image and for the ovals, I continued with the colour theme by having a base of Heavy Whisper White and then layers of red and black.  You'll notice my lovely lady has a stylized "Santa" hat.  Well, that's thanks to some fancy fussy cutting and then colouring with my Stampin' Blends.  I cut the stocking she's holding free-hand from some retired Christmas paper that fit my theme perfectly.

Of course I carried the same colour theme inside since the "gate" opens and shows it off nicely.  Onto my Whisper White base I attached a layer of Real Red and then a layer of Whisper White, after it had been stamped.  The sentiment, in Basic Black ink, is from a retired set called Christmas Messages.  The stocking, off-stamped once, in Real Red ink, is from the Hang Your Stocking set.

I had a lot of fun creating this card and hope you enjoy it, too.  I invite you to check out the other awesome cards created by our Watercooler Artists at the Watercooler Wednesday Challenge.

Remember, we're having a Design Team call.

I'm also entering this card into the Addicted to Stamps & More challenge, #271---Anything Goes.

And I'm entering it into the Moo-Mania & More Challenge since it's all about heat-embossing.

Another challenge I'm entering is the Merry Christmas Challenge #46.

Ch# 46  Anything Goes + Christmas

Optional: Fun Fold Cards

Last but not least, I'm entering it into the Inspire, Create Challenge #006 which is all about fancy folds.