Hello crafty friends. I’ve made a start on cards for Father’s Day – the English cricket season started this month so this die from Tattered Lace seemed a good starting point. I’ve used the sketch from TGIF for the layout, and managed to pick up two sections of TicTacToe‘s grid as well! The top row has layers/game or sport/embossing, and the centre column has game or sport/blue/embellishment – either of those work.

I started wiht the backing papers on a 5×7 card blank. I cut a strip of dark blue card and ran it through Stampin’ Up!’s ‘pinewood planks’ embossing folder. I attached a piece of Claritystamp’s ‘Antarctica’ designer paper on top of it and then stuck them both on the card front.

I die cut the batsman in white card and coloured him using SU blends – ‘misty moonlight’ for his helmet (obviously batting for England!), a couple of the new skin tone blends for his face & arms and then highlighted the creases in his whites and pads with ‘light smoky slate’. I also shaded his bat & the stumps with the skintone blends (more of that in a minute), and then layered him onto the designer paper.

I then felt that the bat and stumps needed to be a bit darker, so went over them with ‘light soft suede’. I also grounded him by shading along the lower edge with an HB pencil to gvie a soft shadow. I stamped in the sentiments from Julie Hickey Designs’ ‘all about the boys’ set, but still felt something was missing – the ball! I used an old Card Candi from my stash box, adding it with a foam pad so it looks like it’s slightly in front of him (that’s my embellishment for TicTacToe!)

Now if you’re not into cricket, I may need to explain the post’s title. A batsman scores six runs if he (or she) hits the ball into the air and it crosses the boundary without touching the ground or being caught by one of the fielders. My batsman’s ball is nicely into the air and looks like it’s on it’s way to the boundary for six!