Hello my crafty friends!!  I’m back from Costa Rica and ready to dive back into everything cards!!!  Have you ever heard of football stamping?  Well, I had never heard of it until I came across a video by Sandy Allnock.  She saved my tail that day.  Click here to check out her video.

I made this card for my son’s best friend but this card was not at all what I had envisioned.  After receiving a wrong embossing folder from eBay (which I had planned on using to make a football) I had to scramble to come up with a new idea.  His Birthday was the very next day so I was so thankful when I found Sandy’s video.  I did a process video on my YouTube channel which you can check out by clicking here, but I do hope you’ll check out Sandy’s video because it explains that particular process in a video of it’s own.

So to start this off, I used a circle die to cut the football shape.

Once I had the football shape, I used Lawn Fawn’s Fake Tan to ink the shape by directly placing the ink pad on the football and smooshing the color all over it.  I wasn’t really sure what I was getting myself into because at this point, a bright orange oval, wasn’t quite looking like the football I had in mind.

But I kept plugging along, thanks to Sandy’s video.  So once I had the bright orange shape done, it was time to ink up my actual football.  Well, it’s my son’s football and it was already filthy so I knew he wouldn’t even notice if it had ink all over it…  I took my ink pad and again, smooshed the ink directly onto the real football and made a big enough area for the ink to cover the entire shape.  The color that I placed on the real football was Dark Chocolate by Simon Says Stamp.  

I took the football shape and gently placed it directly onto the inked area of the real football, being careful not to move it around or else the ink would smear.

As you can see above, it still didn’t really resemble a football.  It was still way too orange.  So my next step was to ink blend some Dark Chocolate around the edges to bring it down to a more brownish color.

I used an acrylic block to place my color on and then put the color directly on the ink blending sponge, from the acrylic block.  Does that make sense??  If not, please take a look at my video by clicking here.

Next it was time to add the stitching to what was starting to resemble a football.

You can use either a needle or a brad tool or even a hole punch to make your holes, but you’re going to want to keep the holes parallel to each other.  And then one hole at the top  and another at the bottom.  Again, check out my video if my words are not making sense.

After I had my football stitched, (and yes! It actually looks like a football now!) I was ready to move onto the field.  Taking a que from Sandy, I used my Scor-Buddy to score all the way around my card base and then added the yard lines.

Once again, I placed the ink pad directly onto the card front and smooshed ink all over it.  I used Green Hills by Hero Arts for the field.  Now, Sandy made this step look sooo easy, but for me, it wasn’t so easy.  Where I had scored my card front, the ink wasn’t supposed to get down in the grooves, but it did.

Jumping ahead a bit, here is what I did to my field to keep the white lines white.  I just used a white gel pen and a ruler and my field was looking good again.

Next it was time to make the jersey.  I found this image on my Silhouette Cameo.

To personalize the jersey, I added the number 24 to the front of it.  I still wanted to add something else to make sure he knew this card was made for him and him only.  That’s when I decided to switch it to the back of the jersey so that I could add his last name to it.

Along with the jersey, I also created a helmet (also a Silhouette shape).  Once I had his last name on the back of the jersey, I was happy with my personalization.

Now it was time to put everything together!!  I used Be Creative tape on the back of some fun foam and then added the fun foam to my card front, which is the field.

I added a purple card base just to get a little bit of purple showing around the entire card front.  Then my hubby came along and suggested I add the letters FB to the field, if I wanted it to look more like the real thing.  I easily cut out the letters using my Silhouette Cameo.  After I had everything where I wanted it, I added a few adhesive squares to the back/center of my football and just to be safe, I added a thin layer of Multi Medium Matte glue around the edge.  I totally regretted that once I placed it on the card, but what could I do?  I live and learn and this was one of those moments that I learned from.  I didn’t like it because it kind of flattened out my football.

And that would be my card!!  I hope I didn’t confuse you along the way.  I try to explain things in words the best I can, but it doesn’t always come out right.  That’s why I really like doing process videos.  I’m the type of person that needs to see it before I can do it myself.

If you have any questions, please feel free to message me or comment below and I’ll get back to you right away.