Perfect Pennants is another catalog sleeper – full of great sentiments!
The Adventure Bound DSP stack is full of gorgeous outdoor papers. They’re well suited to many circumstances but are especially useful in making Manly Cards.
And a staple is sort of tool-like, right?
And oh, do those Manly cards pose a challenge!!
Manly cards are not lacy. They don’t have bling or pearls. They don’t have glitter, either – at least not in my house!! Mr. Maui Stamper Does Not Like Glitter. In general, they are very lean on embellishment.
What’s a stamper to do?
I cased Wendy Weixler, an immensely talented Artisan Award Stampin’Up! demonstrator. The use of repeating shapes isn’t unusual, but most often I have seen repeated circles and I loved that this was squares. Talk about using up scraps!
This is one of the cards we’ll make at my Manly Card class on May 5, and if you’re going to be on Maui that day you are very welcome to join us!
Yesterday during the blog tour I was TERRIBLY tempted to share something that had me literally rolling on the floor, but I ultimately decided it was too much of a distraction to the flow of the tour. However, today I have no such conscientious objections.
Last Wednesday night I stayed up very, very late stamping. The Fountain of Creative Juices was flowing and I was taking advantage of it! Crystal and I were texting pictures back and forth – it’s a kind of virtual stamp camp for the two of us. About 11:30pm I get this weird image with no message…took me forever to realize what it was, but it took about 3 seconds to fall on the floor in hysterical laughter once I got it! Definitely a moment to savor – and she blogged it, so check THIS out.
You’re welcome.
A successful experiement:
I was afraid this would be too boring. Instead, it makes me think of an old fashioned sepia photograph. The sailboat is stamped on Naturals White cardstock and I used Stampin’ Sponges to brush just about every surface except the sails so that they would pop out.  The banner and background are Naturals Ivory, which makes the white stand out even more. The perfect “V” at the end of the banner is made using the corner of the square punch.  There’s a little tiny flag at the top of the mast, and I colored it with the Poppy Parade marker, but I didn’t get the proportions right and so the banner covers it up. Shoots, it’s only paper.
My Frou-Frou-Ribbon card got me started playing with collage, and when I edited out the ribbon and switched up the colors a bit I thought it was a worthy Man-Card:
I’m not quite certain that a stamp set named “Charming” belongs on a Manly card, but I guess we’ll just have to imagine that the name refers to the Prince. The images from the Bliss set didn’t have the right look.
Let me tell you a secret about cutting out that clock face. I didn’t want to struggle with lining up a die cut, or even with the Circle Scissors Plus, so I just cut it out free hand. I did a decent but not fabulous job, because I had a plan: I was going to distress the edges. It’s a sneaky little trick, but it hides every imperfection and adds texture to boot.
The pennant edge is really simple – just cut your cardstock to the width you want, stamp your sentiment, and use a corner of the square punch to create a perfect little pair of points.
So…masculine colors, no ribbon, rough edges and a pair of easy techniques…surely it’s a Man Card.
This tree is my favorite. I still love the retired set Branch Out and I don’t know if I’ll ever get rid of mine, but the tree from Thoughts and Prayers is really majestic. I confess to being something of a tree hugger, and though I love all types of trees I am especially fond of trees with a big, umbrella shaped canopy – just like this one:
This card also uses my VERY favorite color combination – blue and green. We re-painted a number of rooms in our home as part of The Renovation, and almost every can of paint was blue or green. As a matter of fact, our bedroom is now River Rock with an accent wall in Not Quite Navy. Seriously.
This was another card in the Manly Card series, and though I did sneak in a little smidgen of ribbon you’ll notice there’s no sissy bow. It’s a manly Tie Your Tie sort of knot. The tree is easy to stamp in two colors if you use an ink pad to color the leaves and then remove excess ink from the branches with a Blender pen and color the trunk and branches with a marker.
I am still putting things away in my fabulous new crafting space, and am discovering that I have kept a lot of STUFF. Getting rid of things you don’t need any more is a wonderful feeling. Crafting in this room is a total joy, and sometimes I stop mid-project just to look around me. It’s pretty sweet.
When I think of masculine cards, I think simple. I’m not saying men are simple; rather, they appreciate simplicity. Perhaps there would be an exception for home theater systems, but when it comes to cards I think we’re safe with a pared down style:
If you look closely, you can see I used the ink pad directly on the Espresso card stock to create a little visual texture. An embossing folder and the Big Shot would create a stronger contrast, but I was striving for super-simple on this card and I think I found it. It took longer to cut the paper than it did to put the card together!
Builder Dan pulled up this afternoon and I just about fainted. I have been putting things back where they belong and cleaning up like a mad woman for the past few days and I told him he couldn’t run his big saw-dusty-saw in my driveway ANY MORE. He just laughed. He was stopping by to see how things were looking and to drop off some paperwork. Truth be told, I missed those three guys yesterday morning – you could set your watch by them.  It’s ok, though – I’ll cope.
I don’t know why I’ve allowed myself to believe that masculine cards are difficult to create. I love ribbons and flowers and lace as much as the next girl, but once I shifted my mind set I discovered I liked making Manly Cards:
I borrowed Extreme Elements from Kellie for my Manly 2-5-10 class and I was shocked. How have I overlooked this stamp set? These fabulous images work incredibly well together!! Oh. Well, duh. It’s a Stampin’ Up! stamp set. But still…how did I miss this?
You could emboss the Guitar Guy and stamp right on top of him…or change him to Skateboard Guy…or get out some markers and draw a moustache on him! That would be kind of mean, wouldn’t it? Maybe we should just stick to changing the color scheme, because there are dozens of combinations that would work. This one came straight from the new Color Coach.
The Maui Stamper 