Father's Day Vintage Fish

 With 2 dads, 1 stepfather, 1 grandfather and my husband I always have a lot of Father's Day cards to make.  I had a few masculine cards already made that I will be using but I still needed to make a few more.  The first one I tackled was for my grandfather.  He's a fisherman and travels all over trying to find the best spot to catch fish so of course I had to have fish on his card!

  I seem to have problems doing the "vintage" look but I thought I would give it another go!  I am using retired stuff on this card but the blue is Baja Breeze which is coming back on July 1!  First I stamped My Itty Bitty Backgrounds small splatter-looking stamp on the Sahara Sand cardstock base using Sahara Sand ink.  I think this will be my most missed retiring set from this year.  I love this set and use it to add some subtle texture to cardstock.  Next I ran my strip of Manchester DSP (retired) through my Big Shot using the Square Lattice embossing folder (Summer Mini- yay this is current!).  I hadn't used this embossing folder on Designer Series Paper yet and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it kind of distresses the paper by wearing away some of the color on the raised parts....very cool if you're going for vintage/distressed and I need all the help I can get.

  For the fish panel I somewhat randomly stamped this little fish from Just Beachy using Sahara Sand ink on Very Vanilla cardstock.  I used my bone folder to rough up the edges (just run your bone folder along the edges until the layers start to peel apart) and then layered that onto Always Artichoke.

  The "Celebrate" is layered on an Always Artichoke wide oval punch that I used the Faux Suede technique on.  To do the Faux Suede technique, run your cardstock between your bone folder and your thumb, just like you're trying to curl ribbon with scissors.  Keep doing this going back and forth in different directions and on the front and back side.  Your cardstock will start to peel apart into 2 layers, just help it along and when you're finished you'll have 2 pieces of cardstock that each have a fuzzy, rough texture. Faux Suede!

  I threw on some brads (since I don't have any manly ribbon!), a few small star punches and layered the photo corner punch to finish off my try at vintage.

Stamps: Just Beachy, Itty Bitty Backgrounds, Fundamental Phrases

Ink: Sahara Sand, Always Artichoke

Paper: Sahara Sand, Always Artichoke, Baja Breeze, Very Vanilla, Manchester DSP

Accessories: Square Lattice embossing folder, small star punch, wide oval punch, large oval punch, photo corner punch, bone folder