Lighthouse Circle Birthday Card - Nautical But Nice!

I was so pleased with myself that I had made 3 masculine cards for my card group meeting in February.  My ladies know I'm not fond of making masculine cards so I expected them to be pleasantly surprised - and they were.  However, Lesley pointed out to me that my masculine cards mostly feature trees or leaves -  hmmmm, she does have a point there!  I have some male clothing stamps - shirt, jeans, a waistcoat but we've made cards with those a long time ago at card group so I've not used them recently, I think I need to dust them off and revisit them.  Lesley said perhaps I needed to acquire some summer themed male stamps - hey, who am I to argue about acquiring new stamps?!  To be fair, she also said I could borrow her beach huts stamp again.  So anyway, the SU! Sail Away stamp is going on my next order.  In the meantime, I came across this Kanban  Lighthouse clear set of stamps and it was very reasonably priced so I thought I'd try them out.  I have to say, I really like this set - I particularly like the compass image but it's only a quarter circle shape and I wish it was a full compass circle but that's a small quibble!  I've just realised that there happens to be a leafy, swirly vine as part of the lighthouse image so I've not managed to completely avoid leaves LOL!

I stamped the lighthouse image on SU! Crumb Cake CS  with VersaFine Onyx Black ink and then dusted off my sadly neglected SU! Watercolor Wonder Crayons to add the colour.  I just wanted to add colour here and there rather than colour in the whole image.  I used a wet paintbrush to pick up the colour from the crayons and scribbled the brush on a tile before I applied the paint to the image.  I had to colour the sails a few times with the Whisper White crayon in order for the colour to show up on the Crumb Cake CS but I was pleased at how well the crayons worked for this.  After I'd finished colouring I cut the image out with a circle Nestie die and used another neglected item from my stash - my distressing tool - to roughen up the edges.  I stamped woodgrain on a Crumb Cake panel, inked the edges with Crumb Cake ink and repeatedly stamped the compass image on the card front as a background.  Before adhering the woodgrain panel to the card front I added some string and the 3 screw brads.  I really like these brads, I couldn't resist them when I found them but they've been in my stash for a couple of months awaiting a suitable card - I think they go so well with woodgrain!  I stamped the quarter compass again, cut it out with a circle punch, distressed the edges and popped it up.

Inside I used a Hero Arts frame stamp and die ( I do love 'em!) and I added silver nailheads.  I stamped more compass images along 2 sides.  For the circular element on the envelope flap, I stamped the anchor and overstamped that with the woodgrain stamp and punched out circles - I distressed the Crumb Cake circle with the distressing tool.  So now I have a masculine birthday card to add to my card box - almost unheard of!  I enjoyed putting this card together but now feel the need to stamp some flowers LOL!

Supplies:
Stamps: Kanban Lighthouse clear set, Hero Arts Woodgrain background stamp, Hero Arts Sending You Love clear set
CS: SU! Crumb Cake & Basic Black
Ink: VersaFine Onyx Black, SU! River Rock & Crumb Cake, SU! Whisper White, Basic Black, Ruby Red, Summer Sun, Not Quite Navy, Garden Green, Close to Cocoa & Chocolate Chip Watercolor Wonder Crayons
Tools: Circle Nestabilities die, circle punches, Hero Arts 'Small Tag Frame' Frame Cuts die, Tim Holtz distressing tool, sponge dauber
Embellishments & accessories: Woodware screw brads, silver nailheads, string, 3d foam pads