Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Cards for Dudes

One of my favorite cards ever has just three rectangles of different shades of blue cardstock on a white card base. On the bottom rectangle, I stamped, "Feeling blue?"

As I was contemplating guy birthday cards, I went looking through my scrapbooking paper (not coordinated with inks) and found a stack of 6x6 square metallic, shimmery cardstock I bought in a sample pack on sale from Marco's. I'd done a few things with it, but basically, metallic cardstock baffles me. Everything I make with it looks artificial and forced, if that makes sense.

Not Monday, though.

As soon as I saw the bronze, gold, and copper cardstocks laid out together, I thought, "DUDE!" Here's the first card I made.



It has issues. The bars are a bit too narrow. The stamped sentiment is a bit too hard to see. The base should be cream rather than white. But the overall effect screams sophisticated guy, don't you think? And isn't that art deco sentiment da bomb? It's from an old My Sentiments Exactly set that has more cutsy images for birthdays that I don't like. But the sentiments are really good!

So I played with the idea and borrowed (again) this sketch from wiggydl (aka Donelda), changing the base to PTI vintage cream and stamping the sentiment in Brilliance Galaxy Gold to match the gold square.


Yes! And then I went with larger rectangles and stamping the sentiment on the cream background above them in a copper Colorbox Pigment ink to match the bottom block.


Sigh. I ran out of gold cardstock after making 5 cards. But what an easy and sophisticated way to let the shimmery cardstock speak for itself.

Thanks to everyone who made suggestions for stamp sets for kids. I have some promising leads and will make a decision soon. Don't you just love getting cash for Christmas? Yeah....

19 comments:

  1. Fabulous - each of them. Very sophisticated, too.

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  2. They are all great. I love that you share the progression with us. Thanks!

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  3. Good idea! I'm a scrap saver and these are about the size of the majority...so I see some more cards in the making :)
    Thanks for always giving such wonderful ideas !

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  4. Great designs and colours for the guys.

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  5. Love it! I have all those scraps that I just can't throw away. :)

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  6. Great cards - love them all - thanks for the inspiration!

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  7. Very nice job, that middle sketch from Donelda is hard to beat for sure! But then so is your final sketch, and the metallic cardstock is a cool effect.

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  8. I like them all but especially the last one!! I think the sentiment on the top of the card looks awesome!! I've taken lots of great notes since I have a particular sheet of paper with shimmery leaves on it and I"ve been at a loss as to how to use it! NOw I have some great ideas!!

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  9. i love these. hey, i think we can use all the "dude" inspiration we can get! i will definitely use these.

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  10. Oh I love all of these! I will definitely use these layouts - love the metallic papers!

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  11. You are the best! Cards for "Dudes" stump me as well! This is a great design that will work over and over again! Into my "tips & tricks" folder for easy access!

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  12. The metallic paper is set off just right on the white - perfect manly cards!!

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  13. I quite like all the cards. A ggod way to use up some left over papers. Thanks.
    Naomi V
    Australia

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  14. I,too, have a pad of metallic paper that I couldn't figure out what to do with. Thank you for a great late Christmas present.

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  15. Very cool masculine cards! TFS!! Best wishes for a very Happy New Year.

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  16. This is awesome! Thank you for the great idea for "dude" cards. :)

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  17. Love these ideas! I am a scrap hoarder, so I can see these layouts coming in VERY handily...especially for those oh, so difficult "dude" cards! ;-) tfs

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  18. this is so amazing these cards made 2009 but so CAS in their current challenge (paint ) in 2014 !!! -is this a case of back to the future Susan "McFly " Raihala !

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Thank you so much for taking time to comment!