The Return of Man Card Monday!

This post was sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks, Simon!

At some point, long ago, before having my second set of twins (feels like a lifetime ago!), I planned to do a monthly feature called “Man Card Monday.” Then my little boys appeared, and I kind of forgot about it. Whoops! I spend the majority of my crafting time working with beautiful floral stamps and dies, but I think we all find ourselves needing the occasional masculine card! They are not the easiest theme for me, admittedly, but I have a few tricks and techniques that I like to reserve specifically for masculine cards. My philosophy when it comes to masculine cards is simple: keep things graphic and colorful, with lots of texture, some metallic elements, and if possible, some sass! (What guy doesn’t love a sassy, funny card?) Let’s get started with the details!

I began my card by blending Spring, Cadette, Galaxy Pawsitively Saturated inks from Simon Says Stamp on a panel of plain white cardstock, making sure to saturate the cardstock and achieve a smooth blend with these quintissentially masculine colors. Once I had finished blending, I ran the colorful panel through my die cutting machine with the Spun Glass Embossing Folder. I also added some silver watercolor splatters for good measure using Metallic Watercolor. Color and texture: check!

Next, I die cut a chunky sentiment using the Basic Box Card Happy Birthday dies and some holographic foil cardstock, backing the detailed sentiment die cut with a heavyweight vellum. I trimmed some of the Sassy Birthday sentiment cards down to smaller sentiment strips. (What guy doesn’t enjoy being a smart aleck?) Graphic sentiment: check!

Before I assembled the card, I trimmed a 1/4″ strip from one side of the blended, embossed panel and backed it with some more holographic foil cardstock. Metallic accents are always a good idea for masculine cards! I popped up the two sides of the blended panels with Foam Tape, creating some height and texture on the card front, and adhered the sentiment pieces with some more foam tape. To complete the “rule of three” for accent colors, I added some Silver Pearls. They remind me of drops of molten silver! Metallic accents: check!

Well, I hope you enjoyed this first installment of Man Card Monday! Hopefully this series will help you create those elusive masculine cards. I am excited for the challenge outside of my regular, unabashedly feminine cardmaking rotation! Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a marvelous day!