Bike Week - Build-a-Bike Thursday

Hello and welcome back to Bike Week!  Today I'm going to rev things up a notch, pull out all my tools and build my own bikes.  The Ton's Buildable Motorcycle Standalone Dies are an amazingly, fun way to add a motorcycle to your cards.  No stamps are needed, just a diecut machine (my Big Shot is ready), glue and a good pair of tweezers.

Buildable Motorcycle Standalone Dies

OK, I'm not gonna lie.  Just looking at all these parts intimidated the heck out of me.  Lordy, how in the world would I manage to get everything in the correct place....or even begin to know what each part is?  This die set is truly a puzzle and a challenge the first time around.  But I promise, after I put it together the first time, the second one was a breeze!

For my first card I enlisted the help of: 

The Ton's  Motorcycle (Layered) Coordinating Die. 

 This die cuts the basic motorcycle shape and served as base for my Buildable Motorcycle parts.  You absolutely DO NOT need this die to assemble the Buildable Motorcycle but it does help.  I'm going to show you two bikes today, one with and one without this base so you can see the difference.

I started with the background on this card by doing some masking and ink blending

• I cut out The Ton's Geometric Circles Coverplate die in some masking paper then stuck the masking paper to an A2 sized card base.
• I blended three different shades of The Ton's ink over the mask for a soft ombre look starting with the darkest at the bottom up to the lightest:  Coralline, Amber Citrine and Beach Blondie.
• I peeled off the coverplate mask to reveal a nice, crisp white design. 
•  I trimmed down the card front to 4 x 5 1/4", then diecut the large "birthday" greeting with The Ton's Bold General Greeting Word  Plate dies.  I also cut the word from white fun foam and adhered to the back of each letter.
• I glued the inked card front onto the front of the card base, aligning both the top and left side.
• I glued each "birthday" letter into the cut out spaces in the card front.  I felt it was a little too light so I lightly blended Beach Blondie over the top of the letters, then Found Topaz just over the bottom of each letter.  This was just enough extra color to allow the word to pop from the background.
• I embossed a sentiment strip using the "happy birthday" greeting from The Ton's Motorcycle Boss stamp set, Hampton White pigment ink and Ranger White embossing powder.  Then glued it in place.

 

Motorcycle assembly: 

I cut out all of the die pieces twice.  I found that was the easiest way to do it as you will need two of some of the pieces to build your bike and extra parts you can use as fillers.

• The "chrome" pieces were cut out of silver mirrored cardstock.
• The base piece, triangle piece and wheels were cut from black cardstock.
• The seat, fenders and gas tank were cut from white cardstock.  I colored these pieces using Copic Markers then added some clear Wink of Stella over the top for sparkle.
•  I assembled the bike by adhering the tires and "chrome" rims to the base first.  Then the triangular frame piece. I glued on the fenders, seat and gas tank next.  The tailpipes  and all the little parts fit in as shown.  You'll notice some of the little pieces are glued on top of each other to add dimension. Also note that I cut and adhered two handlebar/headlight pieces along with the two long posts that attach to the front wheel. 

For my second card today I diecut and assembled this same Buildable Motorcycle only this time I didn't use  the other die for the base. Now that I knew where all the parts go, I found it much easier to make this die set work on it's own.  

Tips:

• If you look closely at the photo below, you'll see the embossed lines and little cutouts that will help guide you to proper placement of the gas tank and the tailpipes.  
• Once these are all in place it's time to start adding all the little parts.  I recommend a good pair of  tweezers to make this task much easier. 
• Don't be afraid to load up that bike engine with lots of little pieces!  Of course I'm not a mechanic so I have no clue what any of it is anyway.  But I do know that the fuller the engine area looks, the better.  So just have fun and put those tweezers to work! 

I kept this ladies card background clean and simple:

•  On an A2 size 80lb Neenah Solar White card fron I stamped the pretty circle of dots from The Ton's Bokeh Burst Round stamp set in Red Sangria ink.
•  I stamped the "gorgeous" sentiment from the Seriously Amazing stamp set in Noir ink and embossed with a coat of Ranger clear embossing powder.  Then adhered the finished cardfront to the folding card base.

For the motorcycle:

• I blended some of The Ton's ink colors over the white pieces:  Pink Derby and Red Sangria for the fenders and tank, Smoky Quartz for the seat.  Of course some more clear Wink of Stella for some glittery shine.
• The happy birthday banner is heat embossed from the Motorcycle Boss stamp set using Hampton White pigment ink and Ranger white embossing powder.
• I glued the motorcycle directly onto the card front with the wheels resting on the large "gorgeous" sentiment.

 Wait, there's a GIVEAWAY:

• I'm giving away two stamp sets from The Ton:  1 Motorcycle Layering set 6x8" and 1 Motorcycle Boss 4x6" stamp set.
• Two lucky commenters will win one of these stamp sets!  All you have to do is ride along with me this week and leave a comment each day, here on my Bike Week blog postings. (see Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday here.)
• The first random winner chosen will get first choice on which stamp set they win.  The remaining stamp set will go to the second random winner chosen.  
• (Sorry, open to US residents only, due to shipping restrictions.)  
• I'll give you through the weekend to get your comments in and will announce the lucky winners on Monday, May 7th.  

Just a quick note:  The Ton shipping dept. is currently on hiatus but will be back in the shop on May 10th and will get your orders out promptly. 

Thank you for riding along today!  I'll be back tomorrow with a surprise ending to Bike Week so be sure to come back for the final ride!
 Remember to comment below for your chance to WIN!