Masculine cards - Father's Day, Sympathy, and Birthday!!

Hello! It's Monday and I'm mourning the weekend already! How about you? We got away for a brief northern Michigan getaway to a friend's graduation open house. It was way too quick of a trip, but we enjoyed the sunshine and time together.

I have a lot of men in my life....Okay, so that didn't sound good! LOL! I have a wonderful husband, two boys, a wonderful father of my own, and so on. It's always a challenge to make a manly card. Last year for Father's Day, I created this one for my husband. The card was inspired by one I saw on line and I, unfortunately, didn't save the information to give proper credit. I more than likely found it on Scrapbooks, Etc. Hopefully I'm giving credit where credit is due. Here's the card.

 I had so much fun making this. I whip stitched all the way around the edge. The lined paper on the inside helped me to keep my writing straight and it seemed to add to the grungey look of the card.

The chipboard was from my stash, along with the buttons and the twine. I like the carefree feel of it. I remember it taking me awhile to make, but I do love the way it turned out.

It remains to be seen whether I'll get any Father's Day cards made this year. I have no scrap room during the summer when my son is home from college, so I haven't decided whether I can live with my creative mess in my dining room.

The next card is a birthday card for one of my nephews. I'm sure guys don't typically "cherish" or hang on to their birthday cards for very long, so I tried to make it a quickie and I've already forgiven him for probably tossing it after a week...LOL!  Hopefully the thought of me slaving over it is still appreciated. =)

I used Tim Holtz distress ink "antique paper" and a woodgrain background stamp. The vertical stripe is tape from a travel collection. The striped piece was from my stash. I stapled on a few pieces of twine and tied them in the center sith a smaller piece. Stamped a grungey sentiment and popped it up with foam adhesive. A pretty quick card!

Next is a sympathy card for a guy at work who recently lost his Dad.

I used black, red and kraft card stock. The clock and vertical sentiment are Tim Holtz, and the Praying for You sentiment is StampinUp. There are two layers of red. The bottom later was dry embossed using a checkerboard folder.  I layered it all up and inked all of the edges.

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today! Have a great evening!