For The Men In Our Lives

...so fun to make masculine cards

I'm back! I've had a pretty busy few days with a two day class, some very detailed project classes and a couple of others that I had to make kits for, etc. So, today I'm back with a new class for the end of May. A masculine card class. We should do that more often, because I forgot how fun they can be to make.

The cards for this class all measure 3 3/4" x 8 1/4". They are black exterior with a white interior and come with charcoal envelopes. Each package has five in it, so each person gets to make 5 cards in class. I based these cards on some of the elements that men like or associate with in their life. Leather, wood, stone/brick, metal, and the sea. These are they.


I have two favorites, and will start and end in showing them to you. The first is one that make you think leather, and maybe jungle.


I used the old Cuttlebug embossing folder "Mosaic Tiles" and since the paper was considerably longer than the folder I had to turn it and emboss it again. By not going over the edge of the folder, I was able to keep the inevitable 'edge bump' from appearing, and even matched the rows. The pattern will not match, but I covered that with the twill ribbon.

To get the leather look after using the embossing folder, I completely covered the paper with VersaMark ink and covered it all with clear embossing powder and heated it up until all melted.

Here is a closer look at that part of the card.

 
The leaves are actually from MFT Die-Namics Poinsettia which I cut up. The tag I cut out of chipboard using the store's Accucut. I then heat embossed it twice (2 layers) with copper embossing powder, and while still hot from heating, immediately placed my choice of clear stamp into the very hot embossed tag to give it that engraved look. The hemp cord I wrapped around one of my small brush handles and heated the cord with my heat gun to hold the 'ringlete' shape better.

On to the next card.

  
You guessed it. This is the 'wood' card. Again I had to trick the paper using a small embossing folder "Woodgrain" from Sizix.  The using Tim Holtz's Distress ink pad in Vintage Photo and passed it gently over the embossed wood grain to darken it. The maple leaves are from an old die from Cuttlebug that came with a little mini embossing folder to emboss the leaf edges and veins which I darkened with Tim Holtz Distress inks Shabby Shutters for the lighter leaf and Peeled Paint for the darker leaves.

Now let's check out the Stone/Brick card.


Here, too, I used a folder and had to trick the paper. But this time I inked the folder with a white ink before embossing it to help define the bricks and make it look more like mortar between the bricks. I punched out some tiny little hearts and used the white ink pad around the edges of the hearts.

OK. Let's have a peek at the 'metal' card. Another tall and skinny one.


I thought that I'd use the sophisticated black, gold and touch of cream for this one. I didn't have to fudge around with the paper on this one as the size fit into the folder nicely. Actually, it wasn't paper but Spellbinder's Precious Metals foils sheets and Cuttlebug's Script Texture embossing folder. I then sanded the gold off of the script to expose the silver underneath. I added a lot of tiny little gold brads along the side of this.

The MFT's DC Giftcard Greetings was gold heat embossed and then line framed using a ruler and gold Gelly Roll pen. I did the same with the banners.


And, now, for my other favorite, and last card of this set. The Sea inspired card.


I took some designer graph paper, second stamped the left corner, and inked the edges with Tim Holtz Stormy Sky. Using Spellbinders Standard Circles I created the lifesaver ring and attached the hemp cord while wrapping the blue ribbon around.



The waves I drew onto three different blues and cut them out. Then with some Studio Gesso I squeezed lightly out and spread around in a circular motion with the tip of the nozzle on the bottle. It didn't take long to dry, and that's when I used my Glossy Accents to quickly draw wave and added in a circular motion again, over the white caps I created with the gesso.

Each blue layer I popped up with some dimensional foam squares, and then added the lifesaver. Do they still call those ring "livesavers"? I always wonder beacuse of the candies. lol

So there you have the five masculine cards. Hope you are inspired to make your own masculine cards. Happy papercrafting everyone.

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