Happy Birthday, Brother!

Masculine cards can be challenging. My baby brother had a birthday last week. My husband took charge of the shopping AND the wrapping of his gifts. I just had to make a card. 

The zipper envelope is a Kerri Bradford cutting file from the Signed. Sealed. Delivered. set. It is such a cool and versatile design. Love it! I added a little stamping to the zipper part to jazz it up.

The star icon on the front of the envelope is also part of the same cutting file set. There are an assortment of icons which makes it easy to customize the envelope. I cut a second star icon and layered it over the envelope for a little dimension.

I designed a folded card in Silhouette Studio to hold the gift card and fit inside the envelope.
The front was stamped with the A Muse Studio grunged sunrays and embossed in clear.
I stamped the Papertrey Ink sentiment in A Muse french roast ink on a scrap of (very, very) old My Mind's Eye patterned paper. 

This is what the inside of the gift card holder looked like. 

A rugged masculine card for a rugged masculine guy.

Enjoy The Ride - Masculine Gift Card Holder

Sometimes I can't help bringing Crafty Me to the office. Recently one of our contractors left to take a job in Iowa. As a thank you/going away present, I bought him a Visa gift card that he could use for gas or food or whatever on his drive from Boston to Iowa. 


The Papertrey Ink stamp set, Enjoy the Ride, is one of my favorites for masculine cards. Especially for a guy taking a road trip! 

I created a pocket card to hold the gift card on the inside. I started with a 13" x 5" strip of black cardstock and scored at 5" and 10". Then I embellished the front with a 4" x 4" square of patterned paper and punched a 2" circle from a scrap of red cardstock I hand drew a circle on the red circle instead of inking the edges with black. I liked the balance of the line against the black card base.

I stamped the card outline with black Versafine and then Sky Blue pigment ink. My favorite thing to do with this car stamp is to color the headlights with a clear Spica glitter pen and a layer of Glossy Accents. I also colored a few details on the car with a silver Creative Memories pen. Adds interest to the car! I popped up the car with foam adhesive for even more dimension.

Inside the card, I added a 1 3/4" strip of patterned paper and a stamped sentiment from the Enjoy the Ride stamp set. I used ATG adhesive on the top and bottom of the small folded strip to create a pocket. The gift card fit perfectly inside. 

This could be a great idea for Father's Day or a Teacher Appreciation Day gift too.

For the Thrill of Paper

Have you checked out the Paper Thrills challenge blog yet?
It's a brand-new site with weekly challenges.
It's a great place to try new techniques, use up your stash and get scrapping!
I'm very excited to be part of this design team and hope you'll check it out.


I want to share my projects that were created for the Paper Thrills Design Team submission.

Color Palette Challenge: The warm rich colors in the inspiration photo were perfect for this photo from a trip to San Diego back in 2003.

Ad Challenge:

I really love ad challenges. I get so many great ideas this way. From this ad, I was inspired to put the photo on the right side of the page, turn die cut patterned paper into an oversized mat, and the grey background

.

Sketch Challenge: 

I mixed it up by using the sketch to create a birthday card. I interpreted the circles in the sketch with polka dot prints.

California Sunset

cardstock: Bazzill, patterned paper: Scenic Route (orange print), Pink Paislee (black brocade, blue houndstooth, purple brocade), Basic Grey (orange and black), punch: Fiskars (border), EK Success (circle), journaling tags: Pink Paislee, label: twogirlzstuff (Etsy.com), gems: My Minds Eye, pen: Micron, foam adhesive: Creative Memories
Vertigo
cardstock: Club Scrap (grey, cream), Bazzill (black); patterned paper: Pink Paislee (lime die cut), Luxe Designs (turquoise); letter stickers: Making Memories; pen: Micron
Happy Birthday

cardstock: Paper Source (grey), Bazzill (black), patterned paper: Pink Paislee (blue dot on cream), Luxe Designs (cream dot on turquoise), journaling tag: Pink Paislee, stamp: Papertrey Ink Communique Sentiments, ink: Versafine (onyx), ribbon: Wrights, stick pin: Pink Paislee

Are you ready for some football?

It's always nice to have some masculine birthday cards on hand. 
My card is based on this week's Clean and Simple FTL #114.

One layer cards are sometimes tricky because you need the right balance of color and pattern to keep it from looking *too* simple or empty. I liked the repetition of the stamped images across the middle of the card.

Supplies Used:
cardstock: Bazzill
stamps: Papertrey Ink Have a Ball and Limitless Labels
ink: Papertrey Ink (deep chocolate), Pallette (l'amour red, prussian blue)
corner rounder: Creative Memories