Monochromatic Men

I don't know about you but I struggle when it comes to making cards for men,little boy's cards aren't quite so hard but unless the man has a hobby that you can incorporate into the design it can get rather hard to come up with ideas. Unfortunately I've got a run on male birthday's coming up over the next few weeks so had to come up with something quick. I woke up this morning remembering a sheet of paper that I bought at Scrapbook Sisters sale a few weeks ago.Not entirely sure who it's by but it could be Papermania as I have a set of clear script stamps that seem to match it. I cut the black bazzil a fraction smaller than my card blank and the paper a fraction smaller again then layered them together using glue only around the edges of the layers to allow for removing individual layers later on if necessary. Next I layed the open card onto the cutting mat of my Cuttlebug laying a Nestability circle die on top where I wanted the aperture to be. I had to run the card through several times,lifting the die and removing a layer at a time. It's quite easy to do this as you can feel when the die is in the correct place once you've removed a layer.With a bit of playing around with the different sized dies I was able to cut a thin frame of black to fit back over the front around the aperture. I stamped the letters for Brother onto a scrap of photo paper using a Black Brilliance ink pad.I then cut them out and and stuck them onto a thin strip of card across the aperture.



The stars were cut out from silver card using various cutters then glued onto black card and trimmed around leaving a thin edge of black showing. I used black card stock inside the card and lined up a silver circle of card so that when the card is shut it fits exactly behind the aperture. I will write my message on the back of this card.


After coming up with this design,the next one was easy,I might cut out and put together another one ready to finish off for another easy card for a man.This time I used my lovely new sizzix alphabet dies that I got as a late Christmas present.
I gave this card a little more dimension by using 3d pads each side of the aperture to attach the banner.I first shaped the ends of the banner slightly so that I could glue the ends flat to the card.I've tried to show this in the photo but I don't think I've succeeded very well.

I really like this design,It will be an easy one to adapt I think I might use footballs instead of stars.
I hope that you've seen a little of today's lovely sunshine,it's certainly cheered up a very cold day.
thanks for stopping by,
Julie x