The Open Sea Father's Day Card

I needed a few Father's Day cards and some masculine birthday cards for the coming week so I decided to use Stampin' Up!'s The Open Sea stamp set.  It is a great stamp set for masculine cards.  I've been in a creative rut lately so I wasn't feeling quite creative the night I made these cards.  I had been thinking about card layout and color combination possibilities for most of the day.  While I was putting my wonderful kids to bed, a possible layout and a masking idea popped into my head.  I read the kids some bedtime stories, sang some quick songs, kissed them good night and rushed off to my craft room to try out my idea.  I played around with the masking idea and a possible spotlighting technique idea for awhile before this layout appeared on my card.
 As soon as I started stamping the Marina Mist background using a Window Frame Collection Framelit for a mask, I could see the rest of my card coming together.  Using the Window Frame framelit made it seem like I was looking out the window at the sea.  When I was done with all my Father's Day cards and a birthday card for my brother-in-law, I rushed to show my husband all the cards I had finished in just over 30 minutes (a total of 5 masculine cards done).  I was so excited at how they turned out and really felt I had finally found a masculine card to use over and over again.  So I continued to stamp and cut card stock to make 18 more masculine birthday cards to give all our male friends and family members over the next year.  I'm so glad I have those 18 masculine cards done for the year :)

Here is a photo tutorial for you on how I created these masculine cards:

Start with a 3 3/4" x 5" piece of Very Vanilla card stock (or a light color).  Use the Window Frame Collection Framelit to cut out of a piece of scrap paper and sponge Marina Mist inside the frame.  This technique is called "reverse masking".

Stamp your image before removing the frame.

Add a mask (or the piece of the Window Frame Collection framelit cutout) on top of the area already sponged and stamped the image on.  This will act as a "mask" when you are stamping a background for the top layer of the card.

Stamp your image as many times as needed to create your background.  For this card, I stamped the captin's logbook image twice (once on the top and once on the bottom half of the Very Vanilla card stock).

Remove the mask.  The first layer is almost done.

Stamp another smaller image (in this case the compass) towards the top right corner of your card.

Add to a 4" x 5 1/4" layer of Crumb Cake.

Add some Linen Thread in an "X" pattern.

Add the layers to a 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" card base.  Add a stamped greeting with a dimensional onto another punched layer.

My original Father' Day card - I didn't like how big my greeting was so I decided to go with one from Teeny Tiny Wishes instead of this greeting from the Delightful Dozen stamp set.

Here is a little different card layout that does not include masking to make an assembly-line type production much easier for 18 masculine birthday cards.

My final masculine card layout for all 18 masculine birthday cards I need for the next year.

Ingredients:

The Open Sea stamp set #128454 WM or #123032 CM

Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set #128748 WM or #127802 CM

Word Window punch

Modern Label punch

Marina Mist, Night of Navy and Crumb Cake ink and card stock

Linen Thread

scrap paper to use as mask