Beachy Masculine

Happy Monday!  I had a fabulous weekend and am totally psyched to start a new week!  And it's a brand new month, so it's a CONTEST week over at Mojo Monday!  It's the first mojo sketch I've created in several weeks, and it feels good to be back!  I love how this sketch can be clean & simple or you could punch it up a notch, too.  And all those little squares in a row?  What a fun way to use up some of those scraps we all have lying around.  Anyhow, there's lots of chances to win free Verve if you participate!  So once you're done here, hop on over to the Mojo Blog to check out all the deets and the fun cards from the Mojo Design Team.

Today (May 3) is also the last day to take advantage of Verve's {inter}National Scrapbooking Day promotion.  Just use gift code INSDFREE at checkout to receive free shipping on any order over $24 (US & Canada only)!

 
Okay, on with the card details...  I went clean & simple, with a beachy masculine feel.  That's kind of my "thing" right now.  Isn't it funny how one day you just get on a new kick and can't seem to stop?  I made several very masculine, distressed cards this weekend and I'm sure you'll all be wondering very soon where my usual sparkly, flowery cardmaking style went!  LOL  Anyhow, I love this card and I really dig the sharp contrast of black matting with a lot of white space.  I had some scraps of the gorgeous Le Petit Oiseau digi papers laying around on my desk after my Tapered Box project, so I just went with it.  The strip of squares is 1" wide and I added a little black burlap string up at the top.  The surfboards are from the Relax set and I embossed them in Black Soot onto the patterned paper and cut them out.  For the sand, I just tore a piece from the cocoa paper and layered it on the neutral paper, scraping my Pumice Stone Distress Ink pad directly around the edges for a distressed feel.

The sentiment is from the Big Wish set, and is punched with the SU! small and large oval punches.  To add a little interest to all the white space, I scored a 1/4" frame all around the card base with my Scor-Pal, then added a trio of tiny little black rhinestones to the bottom corner.

So what are you stuck on lately?  Any fabulous new toys you can't put down?  My newest love is the Tim Holtz Lost & Found Paper Collection.  YUM!!!  Oh, and the Roadshow Collection by Fancy Pants ... be still my heart!  And I'm head over heels for the little 365 Degrees Flip Notes by Pink Paislee. I just love the shape and the fabulous designs... squeal!!!  So if you've made it this far and you're still reading, leave a comment on this post and I'll draw a name on Saturday to receive a sampling of the Fancy Pants paper and the Flip Notes, and who knows what other little toys I might throw in there, too!  My craft room runneth over!  LOL