Less is More - Monochromatic

Here's my entry for this week's Less is More challenge, theme Monochrome cards. I had a few minutes to spare before work and heard my stamps calling me. I inked up a new one by Crafty Individuals with Vintage Sepia versafine ink. (This is my consolation prize stamp that I awarded myself for not winning the monthly blog challenge over there. I picked myself to get the runner-up prize of the CI stamp of my choice. I picked this one. I can see myself "winning" a lot more runner-up prizes like this in the future. And the best thing is they don't need to come out of my stamp budget because they are prizes. Sort of like you don't have to pay tax on lottery winnings. I can't believe I didn't discover this loophole sooner!)

Edited to add: Please note I didn't win anything from Crafty Individuals. The winning projects were lovely and I merely concocted this scheme as a way of buying myself more stamps without having to include it in the stamping budget. Under this level of close scrutiny, the logic, which was flimsy at best, seems to break down. From now on, I won't consider these stamp purchases as "prizes", but as "groceries" instead.

Back to the card. Inked and stamped with sepia on a caramel card base and added a frame of sketchy lines and a Scor-It line on top and underneath. This card seemed like a good masculine card, so I added a "Happy Father's Day" (A Muse) under the image. I felt it needed something more, so I added some highlights with my white Bruynzeel pencil crayon. Those things blend like butter. They go on really smoothly and I'm usually able to coax any harshness out with my fingertip and I still had time to upload. It's an early attempt at Less is More, since I'm usually of the school that more is more, if not of the school of layering something on to conceal a mistake. No room for cover-ups here! I'm going to try more of these challenges. It's a big stretch, but that's what makes it fun.

Also, just wanted to say thank you so much for your lovely comments of encouragement. I think my mojo is coming back thanks to that! I can't say how much it meant.