I Dig You

Here are some words I never thought I'd write: I'M SICK OF FLOWER STAMPS! This'll last, oh, say two seconds, but for now, it's true. So I went "digging" through my stamps (pun totally intended, lol!) for all things non-floral (they're few and far between, I tell ya), and pulled out this old, old, old Stampin' Up set called Fun on Wheels. Just to give you an idea of how old it is, there isn't even an SCS gallery for it. But with two young boys, I'm not likely to part with it for a good little while.

I started out planning to make a little boy birthday card. What I came up with could work for a kid birthday, but I'm much more excited about using it as a light-hearted adult card ... my husband's valentine, even. He's not a pink and red heart kind of guy anyway (shocking), so he'll probably appreciate the non-traditional colors and image.

I used this week's SCS Sketch Challenge, which is a "kick stand" card. Fun little things, they are. For instructions, click on the link. The colors came from a romper my sweet little baby boy was wearing yesterday.

I stamped the backhoe in going gray, sponged basic gray around the edges, then used a black marker to accent a few areas. All of the card stock edges are sponged with basic gray ink and distressed with the distressing tool. I was hoping for a grunge look that would complement the whole construction theme, but I'm afraid it just looks sloppy and messy instead.

The dry embossing is done with the Spots and Dots Cuttlebug folder. I used the Stampin' Up mat pack to mark the equidistant holes for the jumbo eyelets, then used the adjustable "stop" on the Crop-A-Dile to make sure the row stayed evenly spaced up from the bottom edge of the yellow strip. (If you want a visual on that, be sure to check out Kristina Werner's "How to set evenly spaced eyelets" video tutorial.)

For the sentiment, this might have been a good time to print from a computer and stamp around it, but I used a marker on select letters from the Amazing to Zany set instead. "You" was easy, as it came from the word "your." "Dig" came from the "delightful" stamp. You can see that even with the stamp-a-ma-jig, the word "dig" came out uneven. In the end, I thought the crooked letters fit the card, so I kept it. Thoughts?

Now that this set is out, I have some other cute ideas for it, as well as a fun old project (if I can find it), so be sure to check back in the next couple of days.

Stamps: Fun on Wheels, Amazing to Zany
Ink: Going Gray, Basic Gray, Basic Black, Brocade Blue
Paper: Basic Gray, Barely Banana, Brocade Blue
Accessories: pewter jumbo eyelets, Spots and Dots Cuttlebug embossing folder, ticket corner punch, sponge daubers, distressing tool