The Happy Crafter

The dilemma of Male Cards

Do you always cringe when it comes time to make a card for a male?  If your like me, you'll love all the bling, the ribbons, the brads, the papers and so much more ..... but they just don't work on cards for males!  When I started The Happy Crafter, one of my missions was to stock goodies suitable for all the males in our lives.  These can be easily found by scrolling down the page on the website to the section on the left that says "Tags" then simply select Male.  This will bring up lots of Male related goodies.

So with an upcoming male birthday, I decided to try out the "It's a Man's World" range of Stamps from Papermania which have just come into stock.  For this card I used the "Couch Potato" set. 

I started with a some heavy white card stock which was folded and trimmed to make a card that measured 12.5cm x 16.5cm.  To the front of this card I then adhered a piece of MacIntosh 100% recycled Card which was cut to size and then had the edges distressed using Vintage Photo Distress Ink.  I then took some Figgy Pudding -  Festive paper (Yes I used Christmas paper for this birthday card!) and tore a piece that would fit across the centre of the card.  I chose these papers as the rich darkness of the colours always go well on male cards.

Next I took the man in the couch and stamped him onto some white card.  I coloured in his hair, the paper, his skin and his trousers and shoes.  As I am not the best at colouring/shading (though with practice its getting better), when I have a large area to colour, I try to find a patterned paper. With this card, I stamped the image onto the Festive paper and then cut out the couch.  I used a very light wash of grey (using some ink and a water-brush) on the seat to give a shadow effect.  I added the couch to the stamped image I had coloured and then cut the man & chair out. 

Using Paperbag Cardstock I stamped the image again so that the shadow of the chair and the "z" were in the background.  The edges of the cardstock were torn and distressed with more Vintage photo Distress ink before adding the coloured image to the top.  I stamped the "I'm just resting my eyes" quote from the same set and then attached to the card front. 

But no card is complete unless it has some form of embellishment - and this is where male cards get tricky.  The trick is to be minimal and if you want to add a fibre, use string rather than ribbon.  On this card, I had some Jumbo brads in a red that just matched the papers perfectly.  To add texture and to tie them into the rest of the card, I carefully inked up the "Z" on the image using Stazon Tuxedo ink.  When inking up your stamp, to avoid getting it in areas that you don't want, I place tape over the bits of the stamps I don't want inked that are closest to the bits you are inking (hope that makes sense).  Then I take the tape off and can happily stamp away!

My tips for making make cards

• Use rich dark colours - browns, reds, greens, oranges etc
• Use the distressing techniques
• Search for male based stamp sets
• Use minimal embellishment - preferable those that don't sparkle.

Hope this has given you some inspiration for your next male project. 

Till next time,

Happy Crafting

Keeley