Masculine Card Swap

The demonstrator group that I belong to holds a monthly card swap.  I try to participate as much as I can, and this month I knew I just had to. The theme this month is masculine cards, and I have a hard time  making masculine cards.  We were allowed to  make masculine cards for any age group.  I was going to go with the easiest boy age for cards - baby boy.  I like to make cute cards and baby boy cards are no problem.  Then I thought that I should choose teen, since that is probably the hardest age.  So, to challenge myself I went with Teenage masculine as my theme.  I choose Basic Black and River Rock as my colors.  The stamp set is called Grunge Rock.  I bought this set a while back during a sale.  I thought it would be a good one to have since I have a son with an interest in rock bands, and several of his friends play guitar. I also thought I might use it for scrapbooking. 

 I wanted a sort of grungy look, so I inked up my paper by rubbing it directly on the ink pad.  I then took my middle layer and sprayed it with water and rolled it up into a ball.   I used the harlequin background stamp to ink up the background in a tone on tone effect that didn't show up well in my photos.  I also added some dimension by stamping other images in versamark ink and embossing with clear embossing powder.   I stamped the guitar in Basic Black ink onto River Rock card stock, and cut them out.  I stuck the guitar on with a dimensional so it stands a bit off the paper.

There are 8 participants in the swap, so that was a lot of cutting.  I once was in a swap with 30 people, and the card I came up with had embossing and cutting and layers and ribbon.  I really loved the card so I decided to stick with it, but wow that was a lot to do!  30 cards is not bad, but 30 of the same card with multiple steps, a bit crazy :) 
I hope you liked today's project!  I'll most likely be in full Christmas mode after today! 
Thanks for stopping by!!