Masculine Valentine Cards

Stampin' Up! Guy Greetings

It feels like only yesterday that it was Christmas and already we're thinking about Valentine cards!

February is a very loved up month in this household - we celebrate not only Valentine's Day but also our wedding anniversary.  It's a wonderful opportunity for me to use my card-making in order to express my love and appreciation for my wonderful (and very patient!) husband.  It makes a refreshing change for him from the more usual "Have you done...?", "Did you buy ...?" etc !  So I'll be featuring two cards in this post: a valentine card and an anniversary card.

I always find masculine Valentine cards particularly difficult to do - I want to make the love clear but not in a girly way!  So I was very excited when I saw the Guy Greetings stamp set in the latest catalogue.  It's so versatile that I can see it featuring in many of my cards in the future!

So how did I do it?
At the base is a card made from an A5 piece of Basic Grey cardstock.  That is layered with a piece of Crumb Cake cardstock edged with Baked Brown Sugar ink.  The next layer is from the Adventure Bound Designer Series Paper Stack, also edged with Baked Brown Sugar.  The Crumb Cake Seam Binding Ribbon is adhered to this layer with the ends tucked underneath.

I cut two hearts from Cajun Craze cardstock.  I used the heart die from the Snowflake Card Thinlets set because I don't yet have the Sweetheart punch.  The edges were inked with Baked Brown Sugar and I placed an Antique Brad in the centre of each.  I adhered them to the card with dimensionals.

The figure from Guy Greetings was stamped onto to Very Vanilla Cardstock with Baked Brown Sugar and then I coloured him using Island Indigo, Baked Brown Sugar, Blushing Bride and an Aqua Painter.

I die cut the painted figure using the long, narrow die from the Chalk Talk Framelets set.  The little point at the end was eventually hidden.  I then cut mats to a suitable size from Cajun Craze and Crumb Cake, round cornered them and inked the edges with Baked Brown Sugar.

I stamped a sentiment from Guy Greetings onto Very Vanilla, cut it with a Deco Labels framelet and edged it with Baked Brown Sugar.  I stuck this on top of the ribbon using Dimensionals.

Partially heat embossed anchor

The anchor was stamped in black onto Very Vanilla.  After using my Stampin' Buddy, I used a Versamark Pen here and there and heat embossed with silver embossing powder.  I then coloured it using Cajun Craze, Baked Brown sugar and a tiny bit of black.  I fussy cut the anchor and glued it to the frame above the sentiment.

I cut the pointy bits from the back of two Antique Brads then adhered them to the ribbon.


Anniversary Card. 

Masculine Valentine or anniversary Card

I layered Smoky Slate onto a Real Red card base.  I used one of the dies from the Chalk Talk framelet set to cut a hole in a layer of Basic Grey which I then embossed with the Happy Heart embossing folder (being careful to keep the hearts going in the direction I wanted).  

The sentiment was stamped onto the Smoky Slate layer so that it would be centred in the cut out in the top layer.  I then adhered the top layer using dimensionals.

I adhered a row of hearts (cut from the Stacked with Love series) using dimensionals at the top of each heart.  Two overlapping hearts were stuck onto the ribbon and I cut some little Real Red hearts using the Owl Punch and scattered them.

With the addition of a bow and a little bling it seemed to express a serious amount of love without losing too much of a masculine edge.

The sentiments were from Guy Greetings and also Simply Wonderful (which is from the Saleabration Catalogue)

 Take a look at my Saleabration page to see what it's all about and how you could score some free stuff!

Until next time ...
Stephanie