Happy Father's Day!

The current Midweek Throwdown challenge at Operation Write Home's Stars & Stamps blog is to use purple & yellow in a card. I usually don't remember to participate in their challenges, but decided to give this one a go.

For the design, I chose this OWH sketch:

As you can see, I followed it exactly.

I learned in Online Card Classes' "Stenciled" class, which I took a couple of months ago, how to dry emboss with stencils, using a manual die cutting machine. I decided to try that with this card. I cut a panel from purple cardstock a bit larger than I'd need to cut the 4 sections in the sketch, and ran it through my Spellbinders Grand Calibur with the "Mini Houndstooth" stencil by The Crafter's Workshop. That gave me the texture I wanted. To enhance the design, I kept the stencil in place as a mask and inked over the panel with Dusty Concord Distress Ink and my ink blending tool, just hitting the raised portions of the embossing. Once that had dried sufficiently (which doesn't take long), I cut the 4 small panels from that piece.

I used a greeting from this digital stamp set by Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps. I die cut & embossed a circle from white cardstock with one of Spellbinders "Classic Circles" dies. Before removing it from the die, I lightly sponged Dusty Concord ink in the center portion. After I took the cardstock out of the die, I further inked around the edge with a darker application of Dusty Concord. Then I printed the greeting onto it.

To assemble the card, I cut a piece of yellow cardstock to 4.25x5.5". I adhered the 4 purple panels to it, spacing them apart slightly. This was not as easy as it might sound, since the houndstooth pattern has a directional motif. So I had to pay close attention to which way the design was going when I adhered each panel! Thankfully, I realized this before I started adhering, and got it all right the first time. I popped the greeting up on foam tape, adhered the front to an A2 card base, and this simple card was complete.