Men.
Enough said.
But what about cards for men?  People often seem to get stuck when it comes to mancards. 
I find they are often the easiest to make, and can be very simple.

An easy recipe is:  topic, sentiment, colour, texture, masculine materials, strong shapes.

This one was for our teacher son.  It is essentially very simple - patterned paper background, free download picture, a piece of chalkboard card and a watercolour pencil to write the message on the blackboard.   So, the topic related to him, the sentiment was a math joke, no feminine colours there, texture in the blackboard card, and the shapes overlap to hold the design together.  Because of the background paper no separate sentiment was needed.  The birthday message was on the insert.

 

 

This one was for our other son who works in IT.  He is a much 'louder' personality as well which is reflected in the colour choice.  Texture is visual with 3d-ish looking background patterned paper and definition is via the stamped shirt and tie being lifted with deep  foam pads.  I always find a bit of metal, like the square brads, give a manly feel. 

 

The sentiment is heat embossed in silver which gives a bit of tactile interest.  I find people almost always run their fingers over heat embossing.

 

So, in this one it is the punchy colours and shapes that give it a strong masculine feel.

 

Men also like things they can play with.  So a paper origami wallet that acts as a card, but can actually used, is perfect.  In fact the website that I got this off says people can use it for a travel wallet.

This is great if you want to include a gift card or money as well.  This wallet was used to give a Christmas bonus.

Try push-and-pull cards, easels, or pop out ones. 

Making his dreams come true in the card is a good thing.  So if he is a fisherman, give him a big fish to hold...

 

... or a big truck or a shiny red motorbike to dream on.

In this card, the waves are the negative spaces of a button diecut, and the star fish are cut out of coffee card.

These two are quite plain and simple.

Most times, men like a laugh.  While it's poking a bit of fun, they will see the funny side, and when it relates to them they will remember it.

 

Texture is added by running it through the embossing machine with a zigzag folder.

Keep an eye out for funny sayings and often someone you know will come out with a classic line.  Just find something that will go with the line and you have a mancard!

 

Normally I wouldn't put ribbon on a mancard, but this one looks like road markings so it worked.  Brads or eyelets to embellish.

Metallic card diecut into tools, metal brads, a cut up tape measure, kraft card with a wood-embossed pattern.  The base card of this one is actually deep teal, which goes great with kraft.  Handy DIY men are fascinated by the tiny tools.  You can buy metal charms shaped like shed tools or gardening tools. 

 

 

 

 

Materials are often the key.  Try using suede, woodgrain paper or veneer, wooden buttons, leather (real or paper), twine, cord, twill tape etc. I use metal of any kind, so that could be metallic card, brads, eyelets, strips, drink can metals (which go well through your embossing machine by the way), flattened bottle tops, etc. Heat embossing, especially with gloss and metallics. Paper patterns to try are dots, plaids, checks, stripes, zigzags, clocks, cogs, etc.  Tear, scrunch, and fold paper.  This is how to get texture as well. 

For this card I used a miniature pack of real playing cards that they use on planes.

 

Colours can be anything really (although I would avoid purple and pink), and often neutrals (cream, grey, black/white navy) with pops of colour work well. I lurk in paint shops and get their sample cards which often include room combinations of colour which can be quite surprising and challenging (used for the wallet).

 

Look in men's clothing shop windows, hardware shops etc and you will get inspiration.  Also remember things like road works (colours - dayglo yellow or orange, hard plastic), building sites (metal scaffolding, signs), and car showrooms (leather and shiny buttons).  I love making mancards... and most men are just happy that you made them one.... 

 

Things in jars

I have always loved jars.  I have jars (not a jar collection, you must understand) of various sizes and shapes, and I have a vintage button jar with inherited buttons which the grandchildren like to play with (who needs toys?). 


Think of this for inspiration.






I found a Mason Jar free clip art on the net and experimented with getting stuff in it.


First I tried photographing jellybeans.  This was fun, but I had to do it fast because they kept disappearing ...




 For this one I made a shape card using the jar shape and filled it with my photographed jelly beans.  I did this by printing the jellybean photograph, then overprinting with the jar clip art, then cutting around.  Then sticking it to a base card and cutting it to shape, then tracing around the shape and cutting inside the lines to make a shaped insert and ....  whew!






 






Then I filled this one with purchased
liquorice paper ... After taking this photo I covered the single sweet with Tim Holtz Clear Rock Candy which made it look sort of crusty-glazed.


Much less fattening than the jellybeans. 












                 
And then a couple filled with
coffee ....                     
mmmmmm..mm...m

                               







and my photograph of cashew nuts ...  brown card cut with decorative scissors and sanded to distress.

Imagine my joy when I discovered this Hero Arts sentiment stamp!
















                      ......my photograph of Snake Sours ...  unfortunately these kept diminishing too. 
I used clear glitter on the cutout sours to make it look like sugar.















Some spiders I photographed ...  one of the models crawled onto the card.  The background was embossed, smooshed with embossing ink, then clear heat embossed.











And lastly, what I set out to do - my button collection in a jar.  At least these are sugar- and fat-free!




I hope now maybe you'll look at things in jars in a different way.

Cheers,
Carol

Wonderful workspaces

WONDERFUL WORKSPACES

 

One of the great things about building is being able to design around your needs (or is that wants?), and I was lucky to be able to do that.  Since we moved to our new house I have been asked "are you organised yet", and "how are you going to fit it all in" (some people have actually seen my stash!).  Weeeell finally ... dahdahdah DAH ...  here it is.  The space is arranged in a "U".  All the shelving was built by my husband Ian from MDF (isn't he a sweetie?) with the shelves totally adjustable. 

This photo shows the left hand side of the space with papers, inks, dies, punches, and stuff like that.  You can just see my little desk in the right hand corner.

It is easy to keep it reasonably tidy when it's well organised and has good storage.  I have a dinky labeller so everything is easy to find.  I haven't gone out and bought anything specially, but have gradually collected the containers over time as I could afford it.  Some of them are re-purposed, the wooden boxes had gifts of fancy vinegars & dressings in, and some are old icecream containers.

In case you're concerned that I'm a bit OCD, this photo is of my desk.  Unfortunately, I don't seem to be able to keep stuff off it!  ... AND I'm sure everything on it breeds like rabbits when I'm not looking...    The pink box on the left is a tool box with compartments for scissors, craft knives staplers etc; next to that is a little drawer set for d/s tapes, foam pads, and leftover scraps of ribbon; then the  pen container and the wooden box with stamping stuff like acrylic blocks for clearstamps; then a mug of paintbrushes etc. 

 

I must confess I get in a real messy state when I'm working on something, and I really don't care about that!  I find I sometimes I go from one thing to another to another to another when I'm on a roll or get inspired.  What a mess! 
The window faces south so the light is even all day (that's northern light to those of you in the northern hemisphere), and there is a corkboard with bits and pieces for inspiration and testing. 

 Then to the right of my desk is....

more shelving with cards and envelopes; ribbons and boxes with bling, glitter, sequins, spraymisters, decorative scissors.  The shelves on the far right have my collection of stamps.  Just in front of those shelves is small salvaged table on castors that I have my rotary cutter, scoreboard and cricut machine on.  Just to the right of this is the home office cupboard with the computer, so it will be really easy to hook up to.   It's a great space to work in and I know I'm very lucky to have it (it's right next to the laundry too so very easy to get water or wash out paints etc).

Next door is my quiltroom which is the nearly the size of a single garage - even so, you can see it is a bit of a squash to get around the longarm quilting machine to sit at the sewing machine.  We put shelving in an ikea wardrobe, which holds the patterns, threads, batting etc. 



I do feel really lucky, and would wish everyone could have magic spaces like these.   Of course, now I have to do the work!   What a pleasure!  but ... now you know why I can't stop making cards ....

At last I have got back to The Blog.  I aim to update it about once a week, so here goes.

The Sacking & Lace Saga

Recently an acquaintance asked me to make a special card for a wedding in the UK.  The theme was sacking and lace, and Lynda wanted the card to reflect that.  Eeeeek.  This is what I came up with (also shows the insert before it was put into the card):  

 

 

She was very pleased with it and showed it to the groom's mother who loved/coveted it, so Lynda gave it to her and asked me to make another for her:               

                      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fortunately she loved this one too. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But of course by then I couldn't stop, and kept going until I had used every scrap of sacking and lace I had been given.  The last card was the one with three little hearts made out of the last tiny scraps...

 

 

So that is how I got inspired by sacking and lace!  I had such fun coming up with different ideas using the same materials.  I guess the challenge for us all is to use improbable materials together, and see how far we can go!

Have fun with your creations!



First Ever Blog Post

I just spent the last two days at a Sanzi Craft Tools Workshop in Auckland doing loads of fun stuff with Cricut and Cuttlebug toys! Janet came up from Christchurch to go to the workshop too and we had a ball... apart from the crafting, we had a group dinner at an Italian restaurant complete with opera singers! Wonderful dinner, entertainment and crafting inpsiration.  We met some lovely people too, including the great Sanzi staff.

I am just learning how to put photos on my blog, so I will soon post pics of all the fun things we made AND the lovely stash of stuff we got in our goodie bags.  Thanks Sanzi.

This is a demo card I made recently for the monthly challenge for May on CardMakingWorld.  The theme is a shaped card other than square or rectangular.  I used Nestie dies to cut the cards and papers making lots of layers, stamped a greeting, then added punched flowers and leaves.  An organza ribbon and a bit of bling finished it off.

The other demo shape card was a cupcake (YUM) which was made by cutting a cupcake shape in card, then in two patterned papers - one for the wrapper and one for the topping.  I used Glossy Accents on the dots to make them shine,  put the wrapper paper through a crimper, then adhered them wrapper first, then topping.   The cherry was made by punching a circle from red lazer card and cutting a leaf from dark greeny-brown card, outlining the leaf veins in a light coloured gel pen.  I die cut a white card, stamped 2 sentiments to make one message, outlining it in KindyGlitz and adding an organza bow for deliciousness.