This post was sponsored by Simon Says Stamp. Thanks, Simon!
Hi friends! I am back today with a fresh installment for Man Card Monday! In case you are new here, I tend to gravitate towards all things feminine: flowers, pink, lace, sparkle, etc. I struggle to create cards that would work for more masculine recipients, so I decided to challenge myself to create cards that are decidedly masculine or at the very least gender neutral. I took a hiatus during the holidays, because I wanted to soak up as much festive goodness as possible in my craft room, but now I am back to my regularly scheduled series projects, starting with February’s edition of Man Card Monday! To ease back into this series, I decided to pull out some birthday products that had been sitting alone for awhile while I focused my energies on all things Christmas, pairing them with a masculine color palette of blues, gray, and black for a super masculine card. Let’s get started with the details!
*I have gathered links to all of the products used at the bottom of the post for your convenience, using affiliate links. Thank you for shopping with my links! I truly appreciate your support for my work!*
To start, I ran a panel of white cardstock through my die cutting machine using the Party Balloons embossing folder + die set, then flipped the panel over so that the images were debossed down into the cardstock, rather than creating the raised images that have been embossed into the cardstock. I used blending brushes to blend Charcoal, Morning, and Dusk Pawsitively Saturated Ink on the entirety of the card, creating a gray-to-blue ombré. After I had finished blending the entire background, I put the Simon Says Stamp Nocturne Ink directly onto the raised areas of the cardstock, emphasizing the debossed pattern on the cardstock and multiple colors for the balloons on a black background. I splattered the entire background with silver glitter watercolors for additional texture and shimmer.
To further enhance the festive birthday theme, I used the coordinating die included with the Party Balloons embossing folder + die set to die cut three balloons in coordinating cardstock colors of silver glitter, black, and light blue, running them through the die cutting machine in their appropriate spots on the embossing folder to add extra shape and dimension. I added some thin white thread to the back of each and pulling them together to create a bunch of balloons. I also die cut the components from Party Hat Die from the same blue, black, and silver glitter cardstock, adding black dots to the blue stripes with my black pigment pen.
Before I began assembling, I heat embossed a couple of birthday greetings from Big Old Birthday onto some black cardstock using silver embossing powder, then die cut the larger sentiment with the coordinating die. I added some foam adhesive squares to the back of all of the die cuts and arranged them on the festive balloon backdrop, finally adding a few Dusk Pawsitively Dazzling Gems for added sparkle!
Well, that’s all for my project today! After several months of craziness with lots of challenging things happening, I am happy to be getting back into a little bit better routine. I hope your new year is off to a great start! Thanks so much for stopping by today, and have a marvelous day!
