Watercooler Wednesday Challenge #140 – Libby’s All About Birthdays Challenge

My dad recently turned 60, so of course I had to make a special card for him! This is what I came up with. My dad likes trains, and has quite a collection of train pictures that filled our hallway in my childhood home. The particular pictures he collected are known for having a mouse (sometimes two!) hidden away somewhere in them, and I remember always enjoying searching for the hidden mice in the pictures. Actually I still do that when we visit and I see them! I knew I had to do a train card for him in honour of that, and yes, I did work a mouse into it somewhere too!

I started by printing the Steam Power digital stamp from SheepSki Designs onto some alcohol marker friendly card stock. I then used my Yosoo alcohol markers to colour the image. I went with blue-green for the body of the train as that’s one of my favourite colour combinations with the markers I have. I then used cool greys to colour the wheels, chimney, roof, etc. For the steps and the rail I used yellow greys to help differentiate it. I also used my lightest yellow grey to add some colour to the steam. I did keep checking reference images as I was doing my colouring, which influenced my decision to use red for the front bumper of the train.

Once I finished colouring I used a Memory Box square die to cut down the image panel, and used the next size up to create a mat from some blue mirror card which I felt nicely matched the colour of the train. I used my glue pen to adhere the image panel to its mat.

I picked out a kraft card base, then made a smaller panel of kraft and used a railway track die to emboss a pattern all over it. The die is actually a slider die, but worked well enough for what I wanted to do. I don’t have the proper tools for embossing with dies, but managed to make it work by using a thick layer of crepe paper as my ‘cushion’ to make the die emboss rather than cutting.

For my sentiment I took a Clearly Besotted banner die and cut a snippet piece of white card stock with it. I then stamped a sentiment from Simon Says Stamp’s Best Ever stamp set using MFT Black Licorice Hybrid Ink. I adhered the banner to the embossed panel with my tape runner and then attached the image panel with foam tape. I then adhered the embossed panel to the card base with foam tape too.

I still wanted to add a couple of final touches. I added “60” to the train, as it is a 60th birthday card. I do now have an embossing pen, but didn’t at the time, so I achieved this by using my fine tip glue pen, adding gold embossing powder and heat embossing. I also used some Barely Beige ink from Simon Says Stamp to add a little mouse to the inside of the card (I forgot to get a picture of it!)

This card took me a bit longer to put together than I’d intended. I had a firm idea in mind of what I wanted to do, but I did struggle a bit to get it how I wanted. The main issue was the embossing with the railway track die – as I said, I don’t have the proper equipment for doing that, and it took some trial and error to find a way to do it that worked. I got there eventually though, and I feel it was worth the struggle!

Love,

Lady Joyful

Challenges included:

Creatalicious Challenges – Anything Goes and Optional: Make Your Own Background

Dies R Us – Life’s Events

Watercooler Wednesday – All About Birthdays

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Check out what the rest of the DT made:

Charlotte (that’s me!)

Gail

Heidi

Judy

Kath

Libby

Marsha

Penny