His & Hers Card Challenge

One of the challenges issued during this weekend's Operation Write Home Virtual Card Making Party was posted by Sybrina K. on her blog. She challenged participants to choose one OWH sketch, & do a "his" and "hers" card using that sketch for both cards. Sounds easy, right? Well, I at least found this REALLY challenging! In fact, my first attempt used a different sketch entirely, and I recycled both those cards (or at least the parts I'd finished)!

I finally chose the following sketch for my cards:

For the masculine card, I decided to use the light bulb & one of the greetings from this Simon Says Stamp set. I cut a piece of white cardstock to the combined dimensions of the smaller panels (3-7/8x5-1/8"). I stamped the silhouette of the light bulb onto a piece of scratch paper, and cut that out to use as a mask on the cardstock piece. I positioned it, and stuck it down with temporary adhesive. I blended Weathered Wood Distress ink over the whole piece, and then placed the 6x6" Polka Dots stencil from Donna Downey Studios over it. I sponged more Weathered Wood ink over the stencil, to give a tone-on-tone effect. (I had gotten this idea from this post by Jennifer McGuire.)

After I finished stenciling, I removed the light bulb mask and stamped the outline bulb image there in black dye ink. I colored it in with colored pencils, blending them with Gamsol and a paper stump "pencil." I went over the heart with my clear Wink of Stella glitter brush marker, and sealed that in with a coat of Glossy Accents.

For the greeting, I blended Squeezed Lemonade Distress ink onto a piece of white cardstock, then stamped the greeting in Versafine Onyx Black ink. Once that dried, I traced around a Spellbinders Classic Ovals die, and then cut it out with scissors. (I had to do this because I couldn't directly die cut the right size of oval.) I inked the edges with Weathered Wood, and matted it with a slightly larger oval cut from white cardstock, to mimic the "mat" around the light bulb. I adhered all the pieces to a piece of black paper, then mounted that to an A2 card base. "His" card--finally done!

For the feminine version I stamped several images from this set in Versamark onto a piece of watercolor paper. I heat-embossed them with Ranger Super Fine Detail White Embossing Powder. Then I colored them in with Master's Touch watercolors. After the flowers & leaves dried, I wet the background areas of the paper and flooded them with a dark teal watercolor.

While that piece dried, I stamped the greeting from the same set onto white cardstock with Versafine Onyx Black, and die cut it with a Lifestyle Crafts scalloped-circle die.

After the watercolor panel dried, I cut it into the smaller panels indicated in the sketch. I cut a piece of very pale grey cardstock for the front, and glued the panels to it. I placed the smaller panels closer together than on the "his" card, so the flowers would "read" better than if they were placed farther apart. Then I glued down the die cut greeting and adhered the whole front to a card base.