Anniversary Card - Masculine

Today I was up to some crafting, I needed to make a card to give to my husband for our anniversary coming up on Monday.  
I thought I would share how I went about the "card making process", and maybe give someone out there some inspiration.  
I started out with a couple of sheets of American Crafts cardstock, a sheet of patterned paper from the Prima Stationer's Desk 12x12 Collection and a cut out from the collection's ATC pages, and a couple of tags from the Tag Me Pack.  I also used some Tim Holtz seam-binding ribbon for the bow.  

I took the edge of my scissors and scraped all the edges of each paper to makes them look worn.  I then inked all the edges with a cocoa colored ink using a sponge so the pages will blend together nicely.

This is the worn look that the scissors give the papers when complete.

This is the collection of papers that I used to assemble the card.  I added a bit more inking to the center of the "With Love" card, "today" tag, and "true story" ATC as I wanted them to have less white showing on them. I matted the black dragonfly paper with red cardstock to make it pop a bit more, as the red was used in the collection from the flowers, and scroll work. 

To distress the seam-binding ribbon a little, all I did was take the same ink pad that I was using for distressing the paper and ran it over the length of the ribbon to add some color.  Then I enclosed the inked ribbon in a small plastic zipper bag with a little bit of water to help blend the color of the ink throughout the ribbon.  You can also achieve this by adding a couple of drops of re-inker to a small amount of water in zipper bag and wrinkle it around inside the bag to give the ribbon some color.  Ring out the excess water, straighten the ribbon and let dry.

Once the ribbon was dry, I tied a ribbon around the front piece of the card before attaching it to the red mat.

I really like dimension on my cards, so I like to pop the layers up with foam squares, which also helps when using ribbon, as it doesn't bulk up the card front if you were to lay the front directly over top of the ribbon.  

I also distressed a couple of sheets of cardstock for the inside of the card, using the same process as the front papers.

I didn't end up using many embellishments, as I wanted to keep the card fairly masculine, but it is a card to show how much I love my dear sweet hubby, so a little doesn't hurt (ei: the bows).

I hope you enjoy this post and that it brings some inspiration your way.  

Below I have included a list of the products used.

Thanks for checking in!!!

• http://www.prairiepaperhaven.com/products/stationer-s-desk-collection-kit-12-x12-20-sheets
• http://www.prairiepaperhaven.com/products/stationers-desk-tag-me-tags-tickets
• http://www.prairiepaperhaven.com/products/crinkle-ribbon-by-tim-holtz-10-yards
• http://www.prairiepaperhaven.com/collections/12x12-paper/products/12x12-cardstock-pack-primaries-american-crafts
• http://www.prairiepaperhaven.com/products/3d-foam-squares-black-regular