Adventures in card-making: A mannish solution

The age-old perennial dilemma for cardmakers is making cards for men.

Girls can be catered for with a plethora of generic items- flowers, cakes, shoes, dresses, patterns, dogs, cats, pretty patterns, any colour is usually acceptable.

Men are more difficult.  So many generic ideas are too girly for them.  Often, we resort to generic 'Man hobbies' for card-making.  

One solution, I feel, is your colour scheme. 

Using metallics and black and a simple minimalist look is something I think can work.  Not making a card overly fussy.

It was our friend's birthday and I decided to keep it simple and literally personalise the card by using his name and simple colours.

A black base card and 3 colours of metallic cards combined with some alphabet punches I was given one birthday and my hard-working star punch.

It actually looked fine without the stars but I thought to add a bit more detail

 Since I had those colours and the punch out, I decided to make another design just laying out a grid of stars with some outline happy birthday stickers making a border up the edge.

I often feel that whilst I love making cards and it is the act of creation I love, I don't want to spend too much money on expensive card-making elements so I do prefer to make this kind of card.

That said, I've had some more expensive elements like these larger outline stickers for a while, so I figured I would use some up to make this Man card.  Literally, you simply layer the stickers onto your choice background card and cut around them.  stick them on with 3D pads to make them stand out.

So... my key for making a simple man card is:

• A simple colour scheme
• Metallics
• Black background
• Simplicity in terms of details.
• Geometric shapes: Squares, stars, triangles...

Linking up to Creative Mondays with Claire Justine and the Daring Cardmakers Weekly challenge which this week is: "Let's hear it for the boys!"

Caught on Camera

Here's a really simple card idea you can make out of very few things!

This card was made for WOMOTM, my Father-in-Law who is into photography and I imagine might make a good card for any photo-happy blogger or man of photos!

You will need: Long, thin base card in colour of your choice,Black felt-tip pen, ruler, scraps black/dark brown card (mine came from a Green and Blacks easter egg box), scraps of silvery/holographic card (could easily come from Christmas crackers or other festive metallic packaging) three medium/small black buttons, 3 small white pearly buttons, scissors and circle punch (can be done free hand), PVA glue/doublesided sellotape

1. Cut three identical small rectangles out of the back card.

2. Cut 3 circles out of the silver mirror card and stick to the centre of the rectangles.

3. Stick the black buttons centrally onto each of the mirrored circles.

4. Stick the pearly buttons on top of these (double sided sticky tape works well).

5. Cut three thin strips of mirror card to the length of your 'cameras' and adhere to the button.

6. Cut three pirate hat type shapes and adhere to the top of the camera. Draw on a little black rectangle for the view finder.

7. Stick the three completed angles at equal intervals, at a jaunty angle, along the middle of a long card.

8. Get your black felt-tip pen and draw 2 black lines close together above and below your cameras (like negatives). Draw in little thicker lines to join these at 3mm intervals.

9. Draw 2 vertical lines between the three cameras to complete your 'film'

10. Voila, finished and made very cheaply indeed! This card could cost you less then 10p if your cards were cheap!

(11. You could also add a little loop of black ribbon to the side of each camera to make handles (you could use the hanging ribbons that come in many tops or a clothing label string or wire) but I chose not to!)

Linking up to:

Creative Mondays with Claire Justine

IN and out link party with Feeding Big