Boy oh boy

Why is it so hard to make cards for men?  For me I really want to make something that is special, and is appreciated, but sometimes they just miss a bit of the zing you can put into girl cards.  I've always been a bit of a sucker for pink and frills (just ask my family about the pink dress!).  So most of the male cards I've made or you see in the shops just seem a bit bland.  But then along came kraft, buttons and bakers twine, and for some reason I'm liking the boy cards again.  So here's one I made earlier:

This uses two pieces of 6x6 Kraft card, cropodile-punched down the edge and threaded with twine. The trees are Clarity Stamps, which I just love.  I actually stamped this ages ago but was never inspired enough to know how to showcase it until now.

Pretty aren't they, in a very masculine sort of way of course!  I tried putting a sentiment on it but couldn't get it in the right place and in the end decided it looked better without for a change. Well once finished it needed the male focus group to approve or not. Thankfully Thomas decided to show his approval :-)

Hope you like it. You never know there may be more boy cards appearing here in the future now.

Helen x

May the road...

This is one of my favourite sayings and I was quite pleased with how the picture came together. I love these particular tree stamps from Clarity Stamps. The Big and Juicy inkpad in Spice was used for the background, and the trees were stamped in Adirondack Expresso. I'm hoping to make it into a card for a colleague who is moving overseas shortly.

Lighthouse

This is the first attempt at using the lighthouse stamp from Clarity Stamps. As you can see there is still a way to go to make it a good picture - I forgot to mask the lighthouse, I forgot to put in the sea, there are stripes and blobs on the brayering! But I guess that is why practice makes perfect... I'll post back when I get a little bit better to show my progress.

The Finished Project

I imagine like most crafters, some of my completed images never make it to a project! This time I did manage to frame the picture and sell it to raise funds for the Haiti disaster fund (even if it was to my Mum!). Again this uses the clarity tree and bird stamps.

Trees

I've created a few of these scenes using a brayer with adirondack inks. The stamps are Clarity Stamp trees and birds. I've really been inspired by Barbara Gray's work, and her stamps are such good quality and very versatile.