Sweet Stampin' ~ Distressing

Hi there lovely blog buddies. I'm in our Hometown right now, visiting the 'outlaws', hehe, no, just kidding, my inlaws are the loveliest people you'd ever hope to meet. We are home, celebrating my father-in-laws birthday. I posted his birthday card earlier this week, but was reminded I've yet to post my hubbies birthday card from earlier this year. (Do you do that too, forget to post cards - for ages!) It's perfect for our challenge this weekend at Sweet Stampin' though, and as I'll be away for the weekend, I'm hoping Mr Blogger, will post this for me as scheduled. It's another easy peasy fun theme this challenge. We just want to see you a little distressed, okay, no, not you, your card! Ink, paint, scissored edges, whatever you interpret the theme to be, we want to see your distressed creations. Just remember that at Sweet Stampin', we are all about the 'stamping', so make sure you've some stamping or a digital image you've hand coloured, to be eligible for our Top 3 honours.

I had so much fun with these ridiculously cute, grumpy characters from Taylored Expressions. This set is called Party Grumplings. They were perfect to tease my hubby with this year. He's not liking the whole 'aging' thing, so I made him this card as a gentle ribbing. He actually LOVED it and totally took the humour well. (It was totally a heart in mouth moment when I gave it to him!)

I tried something different with this card, mixing some messy watercolour with direct stamping. I don't know what I was trying to achieve with the 'sun-circle' background, I was just playing. I masked a circle then added some generous splatters. I really like how it came out and wanted to stamp the grumplings over it. So I stamped the first two, then masked them off to add the 'reluctant party grumpling' who was trailing behind in the middle. 

They looked great just in the black ink, but I decided to add some details, sparsely, for a little more definition. So I coloured their tummies with my Promarkers, in different shades of warm greys, added colour and then some sparkle with Wink of Stella to the present, cupcake, balloon and their noses. I added some white pen over the white of the eyes for the two that had defined eyes, as the orange looked wrong there. In hindsight, I should have then used a black pen to added the pupil back in the centre, of the middle grumpling.

My finishing touch was to tie in the fun colours from the bright paper I'd used by adding three enamel dots in coordinating colours. All the paper edges were distressed with scissors which of course made this card perfect for this challenge.

I hope you'll come and join us this week for our fun 'Distressing' challenge at Sweet Stampin', I'd love to see where that theme would take you. Do pop into the blog and check out my talented teamies awesome creations. I'll be back from my hometown in a few days, in the meantime, have an awesome weekend and enjoy your own crafty adventures. Hugs, Wends xoxo

Challenge Entries:
Crafty Catz: #387 ~ CAS
The Ribbon Girl: October Card Challenge
Cute Card Thursday: #498 ~ Anything Goes
Colour Crazy Challenge: #40 ~ Anything Goes
Crafting By Designs: October ~ Anything Goes
Creative Inspirations Challenge: #281 ~ Anything Goes
613 Avenue Create: #202 ~ Anything Goes + Masculine Card
Creatalicious: #124 ~ Anything Goes + Create Your Own Background
Paper Play Sketches: Colour Challenge (See Colour Challenge Image Below)