Have you ever thought how much we take for granted and how materialistic we have become? I love the idea of a simpler way of life which is why I enjoy living in rural in Nova Scotia. Being away from the hustle and bustle of the city, watching the changing of the seasons, suits me fine. When I saw the Classic Garage suite in the Stampin’ Up! 2019 Occasions Catalogue I was reminded of my childhood. Those were the days when having a car was a luxury, not a necessity. The same went for the telephone (landline in those days) and the washing machine.

It’s been a while since I’ve played with the Classic Garage suite so I decided to show it some love and created this masculine birthday card.

CLASSIC GARAGE DSP

I started off by creating the card base. Today I decided to use my Stampin’ Trimmer to cut and score a piece of Basic Gray Card. Then I folded it along the scored line and sharpened the crease with a Bone Folder.

The bulk of this project design comes from the Classic Garage 6″ x 6″ Designer Series Paper (DSP) pack. I started with the classic car image fussy-cut from a sheet of the DSP using Paper Snips.

Next I took a sheet of the map design and cut a 3/4″ strip that I attached to the edge of a layer of Very Vanilla Card with Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow). Then I fixed this inside the card base.

I used more liquid glue to attach a piece of the map design DSP to the flap of a Very Vanilla Medium Envelope. Then using Paper Snips I cut the DSP to shape following the edge of the flap.

Once final piece of the map DSP was needed for the main panel on the front of the card. For this I used my Big Shot and Magnetic Platform to cut out the paper using the #C5 die from the Rectangle Stitched Framelits.

TIP – There are three distinct groups of dies in the Rectangle Stitched Framelits that I call A, B and C. Group C is the nesting group of 8 dies. Then like all my nesting dies I count up from the smallest.

While I was at the Big Shot I also cut a frame from Basic Black Card by nesting the #C5 and #C6 dies from the Rectangle Stitched Framelits together

There was just one last thing to die-cut, the piece for my sentiment. I chose the larger label-type die from the Garage Gears Thinlits and used it to cut out a piece of Very Vanilla Card

SIMPLE BIRTHDAY SENTIMENT

Now it was time to stamp the happy birthday sentiment. I wanted something fairly plain and not too large and found it in the Amazing Life Stamp Set. The only snag was that it was all on one long line, whereas I wanted the words stacked. That was an easy fix.

I inked up the sentiment with Tuxedo Black ink and then covered the word ‘birthday’ with some sellotape. Then I stamped ‘happy’ on my Very Vanilla die-cut piece.

I removed the sellotape and inked up the sentiment again but this time I covered the word ‘happy’ with the sellotape. Then I stamped ‘birthday’ onto to Very Vanilla piece to create my adapted sentiment.

Now everything was ready, and I just had to put it all together.

FINAL ASSEMBLY

Using liquid glue I started by attaching the Basic Black frame to the front of the card base. Then I added the die-cut map piece inside the frame.

Next came the happy birthday sentiment, glued across the bottom left corner of the panel.

The fussy-cut car was added along the bottom edge of the panel, attached with Stampin’ Dimensionals. Then it was all finished off with a wrench (spanner) from the Classic Garage Metal Elements, attached to the edge of the sentiment with a Mini Glue Dot.

I’m really happy with how this masculine birthday card turned out. The colours and images really give it a retro feel, don’t you think?

PRODUCT LIST

BUNDLE BONUS – I purchased the Amazing Life Stamp Set and Rectangle Stitched Framelits using a single bundle item number. This gave me a 10% discount off the cost of buying the two items separately. You can also buy the Garage Gears Framelits in a bundle with the coordinating Geared Up Garage Stamp Set (not used today). You’ll find links to the individual items and the bundles below, so you can explore these options further if you wish.