Sometimes It's a Struggle!

I don't know why but masculine cards are a struggle for me to make.  I'm not talking about little boy stuff...I'm talking about cards for grown men!  I love ribbon, lace, bling....I'm quite the girly-girl when it comes to cards but those elements don't often work well on cards for men!

I needed a birthday card for a man so sat down to see what I could come up with.  I really had fun doing this...I did have to tweak a few things but was happy with the result.

And here it is:

BTW, I scanned this.  I never scan.  I barely even know how to scan but thought I'd give it a try tonight.  I'm not certain the colors are true but then they don't always show up accurately in photos either.  Anyway, this gives you a good idea of what the card looked like but it IS cuter in real life!

OK, I went ahead and took a photo of it this morning...this is straight out of the camera.  And in the background is my cute little dog, Isabella, who turned 2 yesterday!  Happy Birthday, Izzie....but now that you are technically 14 years old can you CALM DOWN A BIT????

Well, the colors look much better than in the scanned image AND you get to see Isabella!

I used Joy Ride paper by Cosmo Cricket and a piece of Papertrey Ink cardstock for the base.  Most of the stamps I used were from the Oh Happy Day set by Unity Stamps but I did use the star stamps from the Everyday Life set by Close to My Heart. I used Archival Ink: Jet Black.   Edges were scuffed up with the Tim Hotlz distresser and inked with Antique Linen Distress Ink.  I also used a little Distress Stickles (Rock Candy) on the little candle to jazz it up a bit.  I also used a Fiskars border punch as well as an EK success one.  I also used a little twine that I picked up in the jewelry section at Michaels. I also used a good bit of foam tape to pop up some of the items on the card.

I think this looks manly enough...don't you?

Happy Crafting!