MASCULINE "CLOTH"

 In early June, my husband and I celebrated our wedding anniversary by being courageous and having lunch at a restaurant! However, we did eat out on their patio. 

Normally this restaurant uses linen napkins for inside diners. When the server brought our amenities to us outside, she, of course, brought us napkins. They were very masculine and classy looking napkins that I thought were made of cloth. Giving an edge of one a little pressure, I discovered that it tore. These wannabe cloth napkins were made of PAPER! 

My first thought was "These would be ideal for use in a masculine card!" So I got me some courage and asked our server if I could buy a few of them. When she found out I only wanted five of them (plenty of fodder to play with!), she just brought me five napkins. I was thrilled!

The card below is what I came up with using the napkin. If it's not already obvious, it is the background upon which the four birdies are perched that is the napkin. 

Once again, because I wanted the cool background to get lots of attention, I left the rest of the card fairly simple.

I must mention that, usually when you're using napkins in papercrafting projects, you carefully separate the plys and only use the top printed piece. Try as I might, I could just not separate these napkins. So I used it unseparated. It was a little thicker than I would have liked, but still worked well.

I stamped the bird laden branch in Memento Tuxedo Black ink on white cardstock and gave just a flick of Stampin' Blend color, then fussy cut the birds, adding it to the background with Stampin' Dimensionals.

Following is a quick tutorial on how to create a card similar to this one. I am sure there are lots of napkins out there that would work equally well as the ones I used. 

SUPPLIES:

White cardstock

Black cardstock

Smoky Slate cardstock

Free As a Bird stamp set (Page 83, Annual Catalog)

Seaside Notions stamp set (retired)

Memento Tuxedo Black ink

Stampin' Blends in Dark Mint Macaron and Light Smoky Slate

Paper Snips

Stampin' Dimensionals

Bone Folder

Napkins

Glue Stick

Tape

INSTRUCTIONS:

Fold a 4 1/4" x 11" piece of Smoky Slate cardstock in half, creasing it well with a bone folder.

Add to this card base a 4" x 5 1/4" piece of black cardstock. Set this aside for now.

Ready to make your nifty background? Using a 3 3/4" x 5" piece of white cardstock, cover one side of the cardstock COMPLETELY with glue stick, edge to edge, corner to corner. This is imperative. While it's still sticky, lay the sticky side centered onto a piece of the napkin that measures about 5" x 6 1/2". Press it in place, smoothing over it until it is stuck well.

Turn this piece over, and using adhesive, fold the straight edges, one at a time, over the adhesive, making sure your edges are clean and tight. Once these four sides are stuck nicely in place, miter your corners. The way I did it was to pinch in the center of the little corner flap and push it flat, making sure the corners are tight ninety degree angles. Put a piece of tape to hold this in place. Repeat with all four corners.

Adhere the "cloth" piece to the black.

In Memento Tuxedo Black ink, stamp the branch of birdies onto white cardstock. You could leave them uncolored, but I used Dark Mint Macaron and Light Smoky Slate Stampin' Blends to give them quick wisps of color. Don't be too particular.

Fussy cut the birds, leaving a white edge. Use a few Stampin' Dimensionals to add it to the card.

In black ink, stamp a sentiment on a 1/2" x 2 1/4" strip of white cardstock. Centered across the back of the sentiment, add a 1/4" x 3 1/4" strip of black cardstock.

Add a few Dimensionals to this and attach it about 1/4" from the bottom and the black on the right touching the black of the mat.

Do you ever embarrass yourself in nice restaurants in the name of art?

Masculine

Smiles.