Crazy for Circles

Well, I am back to my old blogging ways this week. I worked so hard last week that I really had a tough time getting anything done after that! But here's my card for this week's challenge at Our Creative Corner. Loretta has challenged us to make a masculine birthday card - always a good thing to practice since it can be tough! To maximize my mojo I used a couple other challenges with this card: the Color Throwdown and a sketch designed by Jen del Muro.

The day I made this card I got a shipment of brand-new stuff from Stampin' Up!, with a lot of it coming out of the new summer mini catalog. I decided I would see how many of my new goodies I would use on my card, and I managed to get several of them on there. With the lack of layering this is kind of an unusual card for me, but I like how it turned out. I hope it's masculine enough!

I started with a kraft card base that I stamped with a couple different images from the Circle Circus stamp set. You have probably heard that with the Color Renovation, kraft is going to become Crumb Cake, and we will have ink to match the cardstock - but we don't have it yet so I just used Versamark. The Baja Breeze layer was embossed with the new folder that's called Square Lattice. It makes the most gorgeous texture.

I covered the So Saffron panel with another image from Circle Circus, perfectly laid out with the help of the Stamp-a-Ma-Jig. Below that I used a panel of Old Olive that I stamped with a sentiment from On Your Birthday. I've wanted this set for a long time and I finally got it. I filled out the left side of the olive panel with a bit of paper piercing, and to carry the kraft up I added a strip of taffeta ribbon. To make my circle I used a few different tools. The kraft and olive circles come from the Circles #2 die. The Baja Breeze circle comes from the last die in the Alphabet Simple set - I'm not really sure what the purpose of this circle is, but I love it! Finally I added one of the gears you get from the new cog punch with a circle specialty brad in the center. I got these brads free with the May scrapbooking promotion - a great way to add some fun hardware to your collection!

You'll definitely want to go take a peek at the rest of the designs from the OCC team, and then break out your masculine supplies and stamp along with us! Have a wonderful weekend!