A Manly Thanks

Hi again!

Every so often, a guy in your life goes out of his way to help you out.  I'm lucky enough to have a really great circle of people around me so I like to take a moment and thank them in the best way I know how - with a handmade card!  This card was created for a friend and the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge this week - "Its A Guy Thing!".

About a year ago my long-term boyfriend proposed!! So now, we're neck deep in wedding plans.  Since he works in the printing industry and I paper craft at every opportunity, we are of course putting together handmade invitations, programs and place cards.  Recently, a friend helped us source out some amazing paper for our invitations.  With all of the time and effort he put into finding it, bringing it in and cutting it down, the least I could do was send him a card.  So here it is!

My cards are typically quite girly so it takes me a little longer to come up with masculine designs.  In this case, I had decided I wanted it to be black with a gold accent to jazz it up.  Something a la James Bond.

While perusing my usual blogs, I came across a layered die cut technique and thought i'd give it a try.  The video I saw used the technique of masking off part of the card and then blending inks to create a background to die cut from.  While I was watching it I thought it would be a great idea to mask my card face and heat emboss the lower portion of the card with gold embossing powder.  It worked!! 

I'm working on my photography to get these photos looking as great as the cards do in person so for now i'll just let you know that the gold embossing powder has a gold sparkle effect to it, which really gives it a little extra oomph.  

So there's my manly thanks!  What styles of cards do you make for the men and boys in your life?  I'd love to hear your thoughts.  

With love,