Watercooler Challenges - Watercooler Wednesday Challenge #32

The Watercooler Blog Challenges have moved to a new day and have a new title.  The challenges will now run from Wednesday to Monday and are called "Watercooler Wednesdays Challenges".  

I'm looking forward to playing along with these weekly challenges and I think you will too.  I'm challenging all of my stamping friends to join in the fun and participate in these weekly challenges.  Tell them Penny sent you.
  
Okay let's get down to business. The wonderfully talented Kath Rick's is starting off this Watercooler Wednesday challenge with her awesome sketch WWCM#32: 

Here's My Card:
I have another male birthday coming up soon, so it was the perfect opportunity to use the Watercooler Wednesday sketch to make a masculine card.  

Originally I planned to use my retired In the Wild stamp set for the images and the Go Wild DSP Paper stack for the mat layers, however all that changed.  Why?  Well, while I was doing some test stamping and checking the ink density and image clarity on the Tip Top Taupe card stock my plan took a bend in the road.  I enjoyed stamping all the animals and a beautiful pattern began emerging from my random stamping.  It didn't take me long to figure out I wanted to use the sample instead of the DSP.  Don't you just love when those unexpected things happen?  It's the a-ha moment, personified!

A 4" x 5 1/4" piece of Early Espresso and a 3 3/4" x 5" piece of Very Vanilla card stocks were adhered to the inside of the card.  Another giraffe image was stamped in Early Espresso ink and a sentiment from the retired "Full of Life" stamp set was added. 

Supplies:
Stamp Sets: Teeny Tiny Wishes, Gorgeous Grunge, In the Wild (R), Full of Life (R)
Card Stock:  Early Espresso, Tip Top Taupe
Ink:  Versa Mark, Early Espresso, Tip Top Taupe
Accessories:  Lots of Labels Framelits, Trimmer, Big Shot, Bo Chic TIEF,  Two brass brads, dimensionals, Tom Bow glue, Gold Embossing Powder, Heat Gun 

The animal images were stamped randomly with Early Espresso ink on Tip Top Taupe card stock on a 4" x 5" piece.  After stamping I cut the larger piece into two pieces measuring 1 1/2" x 4" for the top mat and 3 3/4" x 4" for the bottom mat.  I've been dying to use my new Lots of Labels Framelit dies since they arrived last week, so this was a perfect opportunity to work with them. Each layer is separated with dimensionals.

Two small gold brads I'd recycled from another project were place in the center top and bottom of the Early Espresso layer.  I stamped the "happy birthday" sentiment from Teeny Tiny Wishes in Versa Mark Ink and embossed it with Gold Embossing powder  on a piece of Tip Taupe Top card stock.  I've never been able to part with my small retired oval punch so I hauled it and the Large Oval Punch out and layered the sentiment with dimensionals before adding it to the bottom corner of the card front.

I stamped the speckled image from Gorgeous Grunge in Tip Top Taupe ink and then again with Versa Mark ink on the top and bottom panels and the background of the smaller label and then embossed them with Gold Embossing Powder. What a difference this makes!  The embossed gold specks add the right amount of life to the images. Before adhering the top stamped mat, I wrapped it a couple of times with gold thread.  Once again this small addition added more interest and life to the images.  

For the card's focal point I stamped the giraffe from In the Wild in Early Espresso ink on the smaller label.  I sponged the edges of all the layers and mats with Tip Top Taupe ink.  When I was finished I felt that the giraffe image looked a little flat, so I stamped a second giraffe with Versa Mark ink on a scrap of Tip Top Taupe card stock, heat embossed it with Early Espresso Embossing Powder and BAM! the image really popped off the page. I fussy cut the second image and mounted it over the original giraffe using small strips of dimensionals. 

 

 I hope you enjoyed this challenge and my masculine card and perhaps you'll join in the fun and enter your own creation for this challenge, you've still got time.
Happy Stamping!
Penny Tokens