Mountain Air Masculine Challenge

Happy Friday, my crafting friends! It’s time for another Stamp Off! Challenge with Susan, Jackie, and me. This week, we’re creating masculine cards.

I have to say, while I don’t have trouble creating masculine cards, it’s not a style I turn to a lot. I create masculine birthday cards for the guys in my family, but usually, my all-occasion cards are for women. I rarely send, “Hey, guy friend! How are you?” cards. But I’m always sending cards to my girlfriends for all different occasions and reasons – thinking of you, how are you, you’re the best – as well as birthdays, anniversaries, and other occasions. But I don’t send a lot of thinking of you cards to men. I should, though, because I have a lot of male relatives and friends that I’m thinking of. So here’s my “masculine” thinking of you card.

I used the Mountain Air Bundle for this card (Mountain Air Stamp Set and Majestic Mountain Dies). You can order the stamps and dies separately, but I ordered the bundle, of course, because it saved me 10%.

Mountain Air is a reversible stamp set. That means, you can stamp the detail image, then turn the stamp over to stamp the “fill in” color. For this card, I stamped the mountains using Highland Heather Classic Ink. Then I turned the stamp over and inked it with Highland Heather. I stamped it on scratch paper, then stamped the “second generation” ink over the original image.  I also stamped the trees using Shaded Spruce Classic Ink, then die-cut all the images with the Majestic Mountain Dies.

Next, I stamped the moon image in Smoky Slate Classic ink, then stamped the reverse image using So Saffron Classic Ink. I punched the moon with the retired 1″ circle punch, but the 1-1/2″ Circle Punch or the Layering Circles Dies would also work. (I always opt for punches when I can, because they’re quicker!)

I die-cut two clouds from Vellum Card Stock and two from Smoky Slate Cardstock using the Majestic Mountain Dies. I sponged a bit of Smoky Slate Classic Ink over the Smoky Slate clouds to add a bit of depth to them.

I added all the die-cut and punched pieces to a 4″ x 5-1/2″ Misty Moonlight Cardstock layer, then added that to a Basic White card base. (Please overlook the fact that I folded it in the wrong direction! I didn’t even notice until I saw the photo. Oops! I’ll trim it before I send it!)

The Thinking of You sentiment is from the Happy Thoughts Stamp Set. I stamped it in Basic Gray on Smoky Slate Cardstock, then punched with the Double Oval Punch.

I love mountains, because I live in the Shenandoah Valley and we’re surrounded by mountains. Because of the mountains, we don’t have a lot of tornadoes and hurricanes, because our mountains stop the bad weather. We do get some snow, though, and, I’m happy to say, we got some snow overnight from the slow-moving storm that’s been moving west to east. Apparently a lot of people in the valley were expecting a lot more snow than we got. (As always, the forecast was much worse then the reality.)

Because much snow was in the forecast, I headed to WalMart to look for some snow/rain boots for Amelia since she has outgrown hers. She has some beautiful boots, but they’re too pretty to mess up with snow and mud.

When I entered the store, I almost exited the store. The lines were unbelievable. I kept wondering why the lines were so long and why it was so crazy. (When I was heading back to my car I remembered, Oh, yeah. Snow forecast in the South. While you can probably walk to a grocery store or any other convenience store with milk and bread, you need to stock up on all essentials today because there may be an inch or two of snow! The South is crazy when it comes to inclement weather.) I had about 1/2 hour to find the boots and check out since I needed to be at Amelia’s school to help with art class, so I set my phone timer, just in case. There were no snow boots in her size, but I did find some cute pink rain/mud boots in a unicorn design that I thought she’d like. (I was right. My ears are still ringing from her squeals.) Fortunately, I was able to check out with an extra 15 minutes to spare!

After we left school and were talking about her boots, I used the rest of the time taking her home to talk about the “good old days.”

In Virginia, we don’t usually have snow or bad winters, so buying snow boots and other snow clothes every year can be a wasted expense. I explained to Amelia how we didn’t always have waterproof boots and mittens when I was growing up, so Mimi put bread bags over our gloves and shoes. Of course, this was beyond her comprehension, and she decided I was older than she thought.

When I was retelling this to my mom, she said, “Didn’t I use rubber bands to attach the bags to your shoes and gloves?” Yes. Yes, Mom, you did. So not only did we slide around on bread bag feet (and fall a lot!), we had circulation problems because of the rubber bands. The current generations have no idea how easy they have it.

So now, please head over to Jackie’s and Susan‘s blogs to see what they have created for the Masculine Card Challenge. They have both endured more winterish winters than I have, so I’m not looking for winter themed cards from them.

Thanks for stopping by Stamping with Buffy. Have a lovely day!

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