New Cards - If you didn't see them on the website already!

If you haven't noticed on the website yet, here is a new card design I made with as many masculine choices as possible, then with as many feminine choices as possible and then one that has elements of both.

	This the masculine version. The background stamp is a line pattern and none of the main colors are feminine.
	This the feminine version. Purple is just not a guy color for the most part and swirling heart pattern adds to that feeling.
	This the neutral version. The main colors are neutral or even lean toward being earthy guy colors but the swirling hearts are more feminine.

You can see how just a few simple choices made the card masculine or feminine and totally changed the card from something more formal into something more whimsical. Using tricks like that can help you get a little mileage out a card design you may have spent hours to get right.

The other thing I really like about this card front is that you can use it for almost anything. It could be a thank you, a birthday card, a sympathy card or a missing you card depending on what you put inside the card.

As always, click on any of the images to see the larger versions or the full directions if you want to know what stamp set was used.

Birthday Wishes Cupcake

Here's another card I made to give away as a present. It's designed with neutral colors, which I guess slants it toward being a guy card with all the female designs out there. The cupcake is colored with Copic markers. The border is dotted to play on the dots that were in the words on the stamp. The background is stamped to match the curlies in the cupcake. Best of all can you believe all three of these came in a cling mount set I got at Michael's for two dollars or less earlier this year?

As always, click on the card for full directions if you want to know the Copic colors or paper sizes or just want to read all the steps involved.

Quick Male Birthday Card

Looking for some last minute gifts? How about giving some handmade greeting cards to your less crafty relatives who like to send out cards?

Here's a relative quick and easy card suitable for any gender that I'll be giving to someone who used to always hear things from the birdies about me when I younger. The birds are at three different physical layers because one is mounted directly to the card, another with 1/8" foam and the last one with 1/4" foam. Click on the card to get to the directions from the web site if you want to know more about it.



A Deceptively Simple Male Birthday Card

Here's a deceptively simple male card I created. It's just rubber stamping and paper so it looks pretty easy to modify to just about any occasion but it's the little design choices that make it different. The center paper isn't just blue, it's patterned paper that I stamped on. The photo tabs only hide half of what's underneath and the center paper is smaller, which means all the colors come together in the photo tab and it ties the different elements together physically and visually. The background paper is also textured which helps it be a little more than just a simple paper card.



Click on the card for the website page if you want full directions and larger images.

Quick and Simple Male Card

Here's a quick and simple male card you can make from scraps of male friendly colors or papers for any occasion. It's also a great card if you have limited supplies on hand. The only real requirement for it is that you have a medium sized sentiment to put in the middle.

First you build the background of the card using two different color scraps on diagonal corners. After that you just need a decent sized sentiment to stamp in the middle. It's a little more complicated than that of course because you need to pick coordinating colors with the same brightness and saturation for this to look well designed. Most of the better paper companies design coordinating lines of plain and patterned papers with the same saturation and brightness, as long as you stick to a single line and don't try to mix and match paper from different companies this shouldn't be too hard. The ones I used were DCWV open stock the local craft store used to sell.

You can obviously turn this into a female card very easily by using more traditional female colors. If you want the exact sizes or stamp I used, click on the card for the instruction sheet on the website.