Apples

Hi, Friends.....

What to do......what to do.  I had three challenges I wanted to combine:

• The sketch from Atlantic Hearts Challenge.

• The Male Room challenge of a masculine card with a fruit theme.
• The Unstampabelles challenge of a masculine card.  

Then I hit on an idea.....  

Each year a local farm family, who are also honey producers, host an apple cider pressing party for the community in their honey house.  Everyone brings plastic jugs and whatever apples they have from their own trees or from the "wild" ones that grow around here.  We, ladies, primarily wash and trim and the guys mostly man the cider press. By the end of the day, each family has a few gallons of fresh-pressed cider to take home.  Oh, YUM!!!  

Hey, I could make a masculine apple-themed card to thank this family after the party in October!  [Please don't tell your folks, Christy!  :)]

For masculine cards, I like to use lots of texture.  Burlap and dry embossing are good ways to add some yumminess without a lot of frou frou.  One of my favorite things to do with dry embossing is to wipe an inked dauber over the raised portions to give them more definition.  For this card, I dry embossed some DCWV scraps with the Checkered and the Interlock Circles Folders from Darice.  Then I inked over them with Distress Ink in Rusty Hinge and Walnut Stain.  The burlap is a scrap from my DCWV Burlap Paper Stack.

Do you like my apple????  It started as a very large punched circle of this scrap of DCWV apple paper for the sketch.  Then I got the bright idea.....could I (who is utterly challenged at doing anything free-hand!) cut this circle into a shape that would be recognizable by anyone as an apple????  I gave it my best shot....and am quite pleased (even amazed!) with the result. (The stem and leaf help....)   I think myself extremely clever using an apple for the circle in the sketch!!!  Ha.  

I wanted to make my apple stand out without too much fanciness, so I applied some Glossy Accents to a few of the little apples in the patterned paper.  The leaf is from K&Co. scraps cut with my
Sizzix Originals - Build a Lilac Die set.  The stem is some twine that I dyed with Distress Ink in Crushed Olive and Walnut Stain.

I contoured the apple with dimensional foam squares (two on top of each other for double the height) down the center of the apple and then glued down the outer edges.  You might be able to see a bit of the "puffiness" in the photo above.

I used some Colorbok Alpha Letters to spell out APPLES.  The green color of the letters and leaf did not match the apples in the patterned paper too well, so I sponged Crushed Olive DI over the die cuts.  I like this much better.  Ink covers a multitude of shade differences!!  :)

I mounted it all on a kraft card base.  Kraft is also a great thing to use for masculine cards, as are any of the earthy tones.

That's all for tonight.  Thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers.  Also, thank you for all your wonderful comments.

<3
Janis 

Thank you for the honor of entering this card in the following challenges:
1.  Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge #125 

2.  The Male Room Challenge #18 - Fruit
3.  Unstampabelles Challenge #50 - Boyz Will Be Boyz
4.  HIMCR #216 Super Scraps Saturday
5.  Pixie's Snippets Playground Week #194 - Use Snippets
6.  Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Love this Technique (Inking over dry embossing.)
7.  The Kraft Journal Challenge #241 - Take Your Pick (I chose patterned paper, embossing, and die cut.)