Dude Time Doodles New Release Blog Hop: Gettin' ballsy

Welcome to my stop on the Dude Time Doodles New Release Blog Hop! You should have arrived here from Ruth's fabulous blog.

The Design Team is featuring four fantastic new DTD images, and one of the Dudettes - or Dude - will be named our MYSTERY HOST at the end of the hop and one lucky person who comments on that blog will win a free Dude Time Doodles image of their choice; So be sure to comment on each blog. You have a whole week to hop (through next Tuesday)!

I used the Briefs from the Brief Conversation series to create a very special Congratulations card:

Around November, my best friend from college took a sabbatical from his job and decided to spend several months visiting family & reevaluating his future. I'm so proud of him: he felt himself becoming unhappy and decided to save for over a year in order to take this time. Not everyone can do that, and I'm truly proud of him. Of course, not everyone has been as supportive as I, a fellow free-spirit, so I thought I'd make him a card to make him smile!

The background paper is the February 2012 Freebie from Get Funky!, which I printed onto white linen paper. Believe it or not, the Briefs image is printed onto fabric...fabric from a pair of underpants! Because I can't throw anything away, I had a pair of white undies (my version of briefs, ha!) that were falling apart that I could cut up for this project. Don't worry, they were clean! I adhered the fabric onto a piece of cardstock with my sticker machine (you run the paper through the machine & then flatten the fabric onto it; easy-peasy!), and then just ran it through the printer and fussy-cut it out. I set the sentiments in Rockwell, and cut/embossed them with Sizzix dies in my Big Shot. I added some color with a blue Copic, and edged it with my black Copic. 

Using my awl and a template I made with dotted lines, I pierced the background and the orange self-adhesive Felt Fusion (from Queen & Co.). I hand-sewed the stitching on the felt with black thread, but that's faux stitching on the background.

Thanks for hopping by! Your next stop is the crafty Dawn.