Saturday Step X Step - No. 1 Dad

Hi there, it is Cec here and today I am presenting the Saturday Step X Step.  I am going to show you this Father's Day card that I made for my husband and for the current challenge here at Frilly and Funkie.

Before I do it's time to pass on some more news about future scheduling arrangements here at Frilly and Funkie. As previously mentioned, the Friday Focus slot has now moved to a fortnightly rota. Well the same thing is happening to the Saturday Step by Step. So in future you'll get three posts a week from the team; the weekly challenge post, a Guest Designer slot and a Saturday step by step one week, and a challenge winners spotlight, the next challenge post, and a Friday Focus the next week. In this way the team can continue to ensure you get to see the highest quality work, informative tutorials and plenty of time to shop for those discounted items at The Funkie Junkie Boutique.

Now back to my Father's Day card...

When I posted this card on Wednesday, I mentioned that I asked my husband to remind me what his first car was and he said it was a 1959 American Motors Rambler - black with a white top.  Well I decided to use that as a the focal point for my card. 

I went searching the internet to see if I could find a car like his and this is the car but in the wrong colour.  I found this photo on a site called Car Gurus.  Since I really wanted something more vintage looking and with the colour as it was on his car, I decided to alter the photo.

To get from the coloured photo to the stamp-like image first I opened the coloured image in Photoshop.  I took the Lasso tool and carefully drew around the car getting as close as I could to the edge of the car.  Then I copied the resulting image to a new canvas.  I closed the original photo without saving the changes.

Next I took the Eraser tool and erased any remaining background.  Once that was done, I clicked on Image, Mode and changed it to Greyscale.  When asked if I wanted to discard the colour information, I said yes.

Next I clicked on Filter, then Sketch and finally Graphic Pen.  Once there, I played with the sliders until I liked the result.  Once this was done, I noticed that the tires and the antenna didn't quite look right so I used the Brush tool and the colour black and/or the Eraser tool to clean them up a bit - they do not need to be perfect.  TIP:  If you want a Sepia tone to your image, do that before you apply the Filter.

The image was saved as a Photoshop .psd file and then again as.jpg file so I could take it into Word, resize it and print it.

I didn't take a photo of this step, but once I printed and cut my image panel to the size I wanted, I inked it all over with Pumice Stone Distress Ink, then randomly added a bit of Bundled Sage DI and some Black Soot DI to the edges before I distressed the edges with my scissors and set it aside until I was ready to add it to the card.

The card blank is some scrap card stock and then I added two layers of paper from the Maja Design Autumn Basics paper pad.  Since I was covering up most of the piece underneath I didn't want to waste any of it so I cut a big square out of the middle of it and I can use it another time.  Both panels were distressed around the edges with my scissors before they were mounted to the card blank.

The next step was to take some cream jute ribbon and dye it using some Black Soot DI.  I just patted the ink pad onto my kraft sheet, spritzed it with water and dragged the ribbon through it until it picked up the colour.  I had to repeat this a couple times to get the ribbon dyed.  Once the ribbon was dry, I cut the ends and added it to my background papers.

Next I made the embossed panel.  I used a piece of grey card stock from my scrap bin and embossed it with the Tim Holtz Gears Texture Fade.  Then I inked it with Pumice Stone and Bundled Sage DI.  I was amazed at how closely this combination matched the Maja Design paper I chose.

I wanted to use this great Prima button but didn't like the colour with this project so I decided to alter it.  It ended up working out even though I accidentally grabbed the wrong ink.  I had intended to coat it with Black Soot DI but covered it with Jet Black Archival Ink.  I tried taking off the colour with Rubbing Alcohol but it wouldn't come off so I got out a nail file and sanded it off and I quite liked that result.  I then added a wee bit of Bundled Sage DI and a loopy bow from burlap string at the back.

The DAD letter circles were made on my computer, cut out with a circle punch and then inked with the same Distress Inks that I have used previously.  I added those under the altered button and then added my image panel next.

The last step was to alter some gears and add them to the card.  The gears started life as a bronze colour but I gave them a little coat of black craft paint and then mixed some Pewter Perfect Pearl powder with some Gum Arabic and painted them again to get a shiny grey finish.

I hope this inspires you to make a vintage or shabby chic Father's Day card for some fellow in your life and enter it in our current challenge 'For All Our Fathers'.

The following products used in the creation of this project came from The Funkie Junkie Boutique.