Its a Male Thing

Hello and welcome to another new project for Country View Crafts monthly Challenge. The theme this month is male birthday cards, so any style as long as it’s suitable for a man. I am so familiar with designing female cards so this one really got my thinking cap on, which I really enjoyed. So instead of making one I made four.

I used x5 inch cards in two colours, (navy and pale grey) and chose some mats in buff, navy and mustard. These cards are very simple really, relying heavily on the background for texture and interest. So lets break it down, I got quite messy for this project.

first, I made the backgrounds using Sizzix 3D embossing plates in 3 designs, Foundry, Lumber and Intertwine.

I cut them down to fit my cards; the waste I used to audition different colours and techniques to see how I wanted to decorate them. I love the texture these plates give and think I need some more.

On Foundry I loved the speckled egg oxide ink with a touch of dark brown metallic wax from Tonic it gave a rusty look which I loved. Intertwine had Brushed Corduroy oxide ink and the same metallic wax I used for foundry. I used the same with Lumber but added a touch of green as well.

I attached these to the matts securing with double sided tape, first though I added twine to each before sticking them down. For the focal points I cut some elements that I designed last month in black heavy weight card on the maker.

and as i’m still obsessed out came the wax and my new seals.

I had a play with different colours to see what would look best.

I arranged by die cuts on each card and secured lightly and then added my wax seal. Once complete I cut some sentiments in vinyl on the maker. I went for low contrast keeping the overall values low to tie in with the male theme, some had no sentiment. On some I used dripped wax as beads. Let’s see each one in detail.