man, oh man!

this week's challenge at shopping our stash is called, "DUDE!" and we want to see... (you've guessed already, haven't you?) ...that's right, we want to see masculine cards. you don't need to make a father's day, card (though you can, and i did!); because of course any masculine design for any occasion will do! 

loads of vintage book paper from several sources, also a map that I SWEAR was torn like this when i found it, though of course i had to trim up the other edges to make it fit, lol. stash-wise, the fussy-cut car and the tiny heart were discards from a different project and had been put into one of my many little zippy bags with "parts for future" use... they're always my first port of call when making a collage or collage card!; tapes: heidi swapp, eyelet outlet, 7gypsies, little b, recollections; compass brad: eyelet outlet; glossy black cardstock: ranger; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m/scotch foam tape and gluestick (for the record, the latter is now the ONLY mass-market, inexpensive gluestick i will use for collage!)

this might be a record-settingly layery card even for me, lol! i actually had the layers of text, map, and illustration all ready to glue up before i realized that even with inked edges they were just not standing out very distinctly. so i added a super-skinny black glossy cardstock mat to EVERY. SINGLE. LAYER, and suddenly the whole thing looked soooooo much better. speaking of mats, having used a torn bit of map, i hesitated over what to do: leave it un-matted? trim off the torn and slanty edge, then mat? mat and cut neatly around the shape of the torn edge?? finally, it occurred to me to mat it on an oversized piece of black and see if i could TEAR along the same outline. i frankly wasn't sure i'd be able to do it, and even if i could, that it would look nice... but it worked and is now my favorite part of the card! 

well, that and the eyelet outlet compass brad, set into a tiny music paper heart! ♥

something else i really love is this week's sketch saturday sketch. as always, i've added my own little twists, but "the bones" of it are all sketch saturday! btw, i thank those ladies and also ABM illustrations for the very cool prize from being last week's random winner!

everyone who checks out my DT darlings' work at shopping our stash is always a winner, and today will not be the exception to that, so off you go to get your allotment of eye candy!