Cards for Men at Moving Along with the Times

Stampin' Up! like many stamp companies does have a selection of male orientated stamps, but we all seem to struggle with this type of card.  Today though I'm sharing a card I made a little while ago and saved for my theme at Moving Along with the Times.  We would love you to join in and share your masculine cards. The Design Team have a fabulous selection to inspire you so do pop over to MAWTT and have a look as well as joining in our challenge. Share your card and some of the DT will come take a look at it and leave you a comment.

For my card I've used sponges and ink and the eclectic Stampin' Up! stamp set Enjoy Life. It's a real mix bag of images but it includes a cyclist, the butterflies, foliage and grass and I've added a sun by using a circle punch to create my own thin paper stencil and sponged the sun through it.

I created a mask for the hill by just ripping a piece of paper and using one half to mask the sky and the other to mask the hill.  Once I had sponged the hill I added just the tops of the grass stamp using the mask to limit the amount of image stamped on the cards and where it went.  I've also added the flowers using Stampin' markers to colour the stamp prior to stamping.

You can create a faux watercolour look doing this techniques and add in whatever images you wish.  The cyclist I stamped on a piece of scratch card prior to fussy cutting and adding with just glue dots to raise it only very slightly.

I like this stamp set and enjoyed the smudging and texturing with just ink.  Why not have a go too!

Hugs Zoe x

COMING SOON 

How exciting!!!

How to make a simple male card

We all struggle with making cards for the boys for some reason but here is a simple layout that you could use with any stamps and any papers.

Punch circles of various sizes or use circle dies in coordinating papers. I've used the very varied,  and really good for male cards, wood textures. They are 6" x 6 " papers and with 4 sheets of each design you can afford to just punch! .  Adhere these circles in layers to a matt layer of card. I've used whisper white and that is on a thick white base card.

Stamp and die cut or punch an image, in my case a tree from Stampin' Up! Rooted in Nature and add it with stampin dimensionals.  A sentiment in coordinating colour, here early espresso, and you have your card for your man or boy.  It's really easy and you could use squares or another shape to create the artwork.  Simple, effective and can be used time and time again as the papers and colours will make each design an original.

Do come back and tell me if you tried it and what you used.

Thanks for dropping by.

More soon
Zoe x

Cycle Crazy for Moving Along with The times

Our challenge at Moving Along with the Times is themed as 'One for the Boys' . I've made this cycling card which covers the boys and the men in our lives.  The cyclist is from Enjoy Life an eclectic mix of stamps, but one that gives you plenty of scope to create an array of family cards.

I started with my base card of thick whisper white and stamped the cyclist in Tuxedo Black Memento ink.  I then cut a piece of smokey slate card to the shape I wanted and then placed it over a piece or real red and used my trimmer to give a border.  I stamped tone on tone again with the cyclist stamp and then added a die cut 'celebrate' from the Celebrate You thinlets which I got as a free gift during Saleabration but you can now buy them from the annual catalogue too.  I used the double sided adhesive paper on black card and die cut before removing the second backing paper.

Simple and quick, but looks like you did more just by cutting a pennant type shape with your trimmer.

Do come and join us with the challenge and add your card on the MAWTT page.

You can also buy any of these products in my stampin up uk online shop.

Thanks for popping by.

Zoe x

Stampin' Up! The Wilderness Awaits for Male birthday cards

Stampin' Up! The Wilderness awaits great for male cards 

We have a handful of birthdays coming up and it's mainly the men in our family so I've been playing with Stampin' Up! 's set The Wilderness Awaits.  This first card is very simple, but quite effective with the Hardwood background stamp, stamped tone on tone in lost lagoon as a base card, followed by mint macaron as the top layer stamped again with a tone on tone effect using Gorgeous Grunge and the magnificent stag from The Wilderness Awaits.  

I'm rapidly moving my way through boxes of  the Expressions Natural Elements and you don't have to keep them with the natural wood look! You can colour them with a sharpie pen or Staz On black in  pad and make them the colour you want.  To add a little more interest to my card I've rolled back the corner of my matting layer, having first broken the card fibres with my bone folder and held it in place with some linen thread.  A bit of 'smudging' with tone on tone inks and a sponge dauber or two and you have a great card for one of the men in your life! 

So this one is a happy birthday for my brother-in-law.

More soon Zx

Challenges 

Pixie Snipets - must use snipets