While I love buying patterned paper for specific occasions I don’t like the leftovers once an event is done. That’s why I always look for other ways to use the paper I buy. Take the O Holy Night 12” x 12” Designer Series Paper (DSP) for instance… it was designed to coordinate with the Night Divine Stamp Set and dies to create Christmas cards with a religious theme, but I discovered that it’s also great for masculine cards, especially when combined with the Trucking Along Stamp Set and builder punch.

QUARTER SHEET START

I began by cutting a 6″ x 6″ piece of the sand dune sheet from the O Holy Night DSP. This would be enough to decorate the envelope, as awell as the front and inside of my card.

After making sure that the sand dunes were horizontal I cut a strip 2-1/4″ high by 6″ wide from my quarter sheet. Using Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) I attached the paper to the flap of a Very Vanilla Medium Envelope. Then I trimmed off the excess DSP with my Paper Snips, using the edge of the envelope flap as a guide.

Next I cut a 3/4″ x 6″ strip of the DSP before trimming it to 5-1/4″ wide. Then I glued the strip along the bottom edge of a 4″ x 5-1/4″ piece of Very Vanilla Card.

For my A2 tent-style card base I cut and scored some Thick Very Vanilla Card. After folding it along the scored line I sharpened the crease with a Bone Folder. Then I glued the assembled Very Vanilla layer on the inside.

All I had left of my quarter sheet of DSP was a 3″ x 6″ piece and I trimmed that to 5-1/2″ wide. Next I cut a 3-1/8″ x 5-1/2″ piece of Pebbled Path Card and having lined up the bottom edges I glued the paper on top. With that done I lined up the layers with the bottom of the card base. Then I fixed it in place using Stampin’ Dimensionals

TRUCKING TIPS

Now I needed to add the details to the front of the card. So I started with a scrap of Thick Basic White Card and a Tuxedo Black inkpad. After stamping the truck outline from the Trucking Along Stamp Set I decided to colour it using Stampin’ Blends alcohol markers. For the wheels I used light Smoky Slate, then switched to light Lemon Lolly for the windows. Finally I used dark Basic Black for the tyres, before finishing off the rest of the truck with dark Basic Black. Of course the black colouring made the details on the stamped image a little hard to see but I had a solution for that.

First I made sure that the truck stamp was properly clean and tapped it onto a VersaMark ink pad. Then looking through the clear photopolymer stamp I was able to line it up with my coloured image. Once the VersaMark was stamped I sprinkled the sticky ink with black powder from the Basics Embossing Powders pack. Next I tapped off the excess, removed a few stray specks, then melted the rest of the powder with my Heat Tool set on high. From there I punched out the image using the coordinating Trucking Along Builder Punch.

As the heat embossing tools were close at hand I decided that my sentiment should be embossed in black too. After a little searching I chose “to the man who does everything” from the He’s All That Stamp Set. Then once the embossed sentiment had cooled I cut it out using the ‘rectangular’ label from the All That Dies set.

Finally I positioned the truck on the sand dunes and attached it with Stampin’ Dimensionals before adding the sentiment in the space that was left. With that my masculine card was finally complete.

PRODUCT LIST

ONLINE EXCLUSIVES – The Trucking Along Stamp Set and punch are part of the Stampin’ Up! Online Exclusives range. These items are subject to availability and may be discontinued without warning. New products are being added to the Online Exclusives range on November 7th.

BUNDLE BONUS – I bought the Trucking Along Stamp Set in a bundle with the coordinating Trucking Along Builder Punch. Buying the two items using the single ‘bundle’ item number saved me 10% off the cost of buying them separately. I’ve included links for both options below in case you want to explore these further.