A Masculine Birthday Card

I don't know about y'all, but I always struggle with masculine cards.  Given that I do have males who happen to have birthdays in my life, I have to challenge myself each time I need one, so why not look to some of the challenge blogs for inspiration and motivation?  The Papercraft Challenge theme of "For Men and Boys" provided the motivation while Sunday Stamps provided inspiration with this photo and the challenge to use at least three of the colors to create a card.

The drawing in the book reminded me of Simon Says Stamp's Ornate Backgrounds stamp, so I stamped it on Desert Storm paper and embossed it with white powder.  I used ZIG Clean Color Real Brush markers to color the image, layering a medium gray and green to make that color to the far right which sometimes looks dark gray and sometimes muted dark green to me.  For the sentiment I combined the word happy from Simon Says Stamp's Stained Glass Love set with "birthday to you" from Birchpress Designs' Make a Statement set.  After trimming everything down I decided I wanted a thin border around it before putting it on the card base but didn't have colored cardstock to match the dark muted green, so I cut another piece of Desert Storm cardstock and colored around the edges in the same gray and green I used on the stamp.  Perfect match!  Then all I had to do was attach it to the card base popped up with craft foam and glue on few white Nuvo Drops.  Because it takes Nuvo Drops so long to harden, I drop a lot of drops in different sizes on a silicon mat, let them dry for a few days and then put them in small jars to use later.

I am also going to enter this into the Seize the Birthday challenge which is always anything goes with an optional topping which I will forgo as this week it is "presents."  By the way, although the Sunday Stamps challenge ends at 6:00 p.m. EDT, there is plenty of time to enter the other two if you are inspired to do so.  Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time, Hansi