Cards for the men in our lives....

I know a lot card makers struggle with cards for the men in our lives, but it's not that hard to do if you start thinking differently. Think about the clothes your man likes to wear, what kind of patterns are on them? What colors? Are they sports enthusiasts? Hunting, fishing, cars, woodworking? What are some of the materials used in their hobbies? If you start looking at the different elements that make up their wardrobe and hobbies, you can easily come up with a card they will like.

Here's an example of a card I know my Jimmy will like. He loves to hunt, deer and pheasant are his favorite. So when I come across a deer or bird stamp I know he would like, I get it specifically to use for his cards. In this card, the image is a gorgeous snowy scene from Northwoods. 

Now what about papers/patterns? For a hunter/outdoors-man plaids are almost a given, as in flannel shirts. To recreate a plaid flannel shirt, I stamped my own plaid using a plaid maker stamp from DRS Designs and Waltzingmouse. He likes blue, so I used two different blues and a rusty red for some holiday accent. Then I ran it through my Big Kick using the linen Impression Plate from Papertrey Ink, for some realistic fabric texture.

Let's see, what else does Jimmy like? He collects guns/rifles not only for their purpose, but because of the craftsmanship of the wood grips. He appreciates beautiful woods. So, from my stash I get some of the real wood paper I found at Michael's a long time ago.


Since I know he wouldn't really appreciate flowers, or bows on his card, I did something else. I added a little pine decoration to the bottom of the image. A couple of shaped pine branch die cuts from Cheery Lynn, tipped with white acrylic paint and some tiny hand made pinecones frosted with glass glitter does the trick! A festive little greenery swag  to spruce up the whole card. 


So quit agonizing over those masculine cards and just start thinking about the few things I've mentioned, and you'll have no trouble coming up with a gorgeous card your man will love.


Thanks for visiting, I'll be back soon with updates on the snowflake cookie baking project I'm going to working on all day today.


Stamps: Northwoods, DRS Designs, Waltzingmouse, PTI
Ink: Versafine, Distress, Marvy Heritage
Paper: PTI, wood paper, water color paper, SU, gold c.s., Raspberry Road Designs digital paper
Tools & Accessories: Niji water brush, gold leafing pen, Cheery Lynn pine branch dies, flower punch (for pine cones), Americana acrylic paint, glass glitter, PTI banner die, Michael's ribbon, Viva Decor pearl pen