Man Card Monday April 2024: Do You Play Pickleball?

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

Hi friends! I’m back for the April edition of Man Card Monday, a bit delayed because of one of my 4 year old twin boys fracturing his tibia. (On his birthday, no less. Sad face!) It made life a little hectic, to say the least, so my Man Card Monday post featuring the new Pickleball set from the Be Bold release is a bit later than I planned. I’ve never played pickleball myself, but I know that it’s hugely popular and it looks like tons of fun! Kind of like table tennis on steroids, if I understand it correctly? I thought the set would make a perfect project (or two) for Man Card Monday with some bold colors and subtle plaid background. Let’s get started with the details!

The new Pickleball set features some silhouettes of the players in different positions, a net, some paddles, and, of course, a ball, all accompanied by some clever and creative sentiments! I guess I had tennis in my mind’s eye when I was creating these cards, and so thought that a crisp, almost neon green, black, and white color palette would suit these bold images, and I’m super pleased with the results. I always equate tennis courts with being “preppy” and so channeled that imagery by pairing these images with the Soft Plaid Background and the Rainbow Splash Lime and Grass inks for some vivid and bold color.

I started my first card by stamping the silhouette images of the players onto some Hammermill white cardstock using black pigment ink and embossing them with clear embossing powder. I think that clear embossing the black silhouettes makes them super crisp and bold! I also heat embossed the net on some vellum so that the die cut would almost “float” like a real net would!

For the background, I stamped the Soft Plaid Background on some more white cardstock, inking up only the center of the stamp and dabbing the edges of the inked up area using my microfiber cloth so that they would fade smoothly away. After stamping the image with the Rainbow Splash Grass ink, I used a blending brush to blend a spotlight area with Rainbow Splash Lime ink in the center of the plaid panel. This spotlight helps to ground my scene so that the players were not just floating in midair, ha! I trimmed the panel down, taking 1/4″ off of each side, and mounted it in the center of a white A2 panel of cardstock.

I popped up the embossed images using foam adhesive, arranging the solid die cuts to overlap the vellum net and hiding the foam squares behind the solid die cuts to keep my vellum net nice and clean! I also added some coordinating lime green alcohol marker coloring to the paddles to help keep the color palette cohesive. I embossed and die cut a greeting, then tucked it next to one of my players’ feet with some foam squares.

For the second card, I wanted to focus on the larger scale “dink” sentiment and the accessories included in the Pickleball set. I started by stamping the sentiments and ball with more black pigment ink and embossing them with clear embossing powder. Next, I stamped the paddles, first stamping them completely with Lime ink, then doing some partial stamping around the edges of the paddles with Grass ink, dabbing the center of the stamp with my microfiber cloth to create some color gradient. I used a black fineliner pen on the wrapped handles, so that the images coordinated with the black outline for the ball. (I don’t love mixing solid stamps with outline stamps on the same project, so that black fineliner pen was just the ticket!)

For the background, I stamped the Soft Plaid Background on some more white cardstock using Lime ink, then trimmed the panel down 1/4″ on all sides and blended more Lime ink around the edges, creating a vivid green halo. I centered the plaid panel on an A2 panel of green glitter cardstock, then added my die cut pickleball elements using more foam squares for lots of dimension!

Well, that’s all for this month’s edition of Man Card Monday (on Tuesday, whoops!). Be sure to check back here later this week for tons and tons of new inspiration using the upcoming Simon Says Stamp release…. it’s a really good one!