Distinguished Eclectic Adverts

Two of the new stamp sets released this month from Tim Holtz and Stampers Anonymous are the Distinguished CMS371 and Eclectic Adverts CMS372. These are both fabulous stamp sets with so many delightful vintage images. They make some wonderful masculine cards, which is what I was going for with these two cards.

To make the background on this hatter card, I stamped the various hats from the Distinguished set onto a piece of Distress Mixed Media Heavystock with the Warm Archival Inks - Hickory Smoke, Vintage Photo and Ground Espresso. Then I did the whole Wrinkle-free Distress method with Antique Linen Distress ink. I believe I threw in a little Vintage Photo in their too. If you look closely, you will see that I randomly stamped the wording on the set all over the background, but in Distress Ink so that when it got wet it would run and lighten.

For the focal point, I stamped the Nicholai Michaelis Hatters stamp from the Eclectic Adverts, onto a piece of Distress Mixed Media Heavystock.  I stamped it with Black Soot Archival Ink and then did a weird technique that I'm not totally sold on, but I'll explain it anyway. LOL!

I stamped the hat image in Black Soot Archival and then immediately applied Ranger Superfine Black Embossing Powder. You may be saying to yourself, it doesn't look embossed to me! And that would make me happy, because I wasn't going for a traditional embossed look.  I heated it so it would melt into a shiny embossing. But then I remembered in one of Tim's tutorials years ago, or maybe a Creative Chemistry class (?) I don't know, but he said that we can't heat embossing powder too much or it will soak in to the paper and kind of disappear.  I wanted to see how it would look if I did that.  So I just kept heating the embossing powder until is soaked into the paper.  It's different. LOL! I told you I wasn't sold on this technique.  It does look a little old and worn and matte in some areas with tiny little bits of shine peeking through still.  So I think it basically accomplished what I wanted was a look that was more than just stamping with Black Soot Archival as there is a tiniest bit of texture, but it doesn't look shiny and new embossing. 

I finished the piece with alcohol inked Ideaology Hardware Heads, and a very neatly tied bow from a piece of dark brown twill I had in my stash. It is supposed to mimic a hatband.

This collar card was made to give to a friend.  The frame was made by lightly coloring a piece of Distress Mixed Media Heavystock with Crushed Olive Distress Ink. Then I added more ink on top of it through the THS097 Plaid Layering Stencil. I cut the center out with one of the Stitched Rectangles to make a frame.  On a second piece of Heavystock I applied Antique Linen Distress Ink using the Wrinkle-free Distress method. Then I stamped 5 of the collars from the Distinguished set and the Garden City Collar from the Eclectic Adverts in Black Soot Archival Ink. I watercolored them with Distress Ink, popped the frame on and added two buttons representing the buttons that would be used on collars.
Very simple, but I like it!

There are two examples of how I paired these two really great vintage, masculine stamp sets.  As always, I appreciate you stopping by!
Tami

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