Cards for Guys

Card making is one of those hobbies that has been largely enjoyed by women in the past.  Many companies in the crafting industry are owned and managed by women.  Many of the products that we purchase are certainly geared towards women.  So, making masculine cards can be a bit of a challenge.  I also want to remind you, that crafting and, indeed, card making is an activity that involves many skills and can be enjoyed by both men and women.  There are some great gentlemen in the crafting industry as well and they know their stuff.  If you are interested in learning more about a few of the guys in the paper crafting industry, check out these links.

Tim Holtz

Simon Hurley

Christopher Allen from Brutus Monroe

Today, I'm aware that Father's Day is about 2 weeks away, so I wanted to share some masculine cards with you as well as some tips for designing your own masculine cards.

Tip #1 Masculine Colours

While we often associate Blue with Boys... you don't have to stick to just blue.  We often think about dark colours (like grey, brown, black etc) for our boys and while these dark colour palettes certainly look more 'manly' there are no hard and fast rules about colour.  Think about muted colours, you can use red, orange, yellow and even pink if you use more muted shades. Catherine Pooler makes it so easy to work out the grey content of your colours with her Party and Spa Ink Collections.  Any colour in the Spa Collection should suit a design for any guy in your life.  My main rule with the "boy" cards is to keep my colour palette limited to only two or three colours.  This is a good rule most of the time, but with the feminine cards it's easier to add colour in images.  Keep it simple for yourself by limiting the number of colours.

Tip #2 Geometric Shapes

When in doubt use geometric shapes in your cards.  It's easy to make a 'masculine' pattern in muted colours.  Keep the shapes simple and embrace the straight lines and sharp corners.  Like in these cards...

Of course, when using one or two colours, you can sometimes use various shades of the same colour to add interest without getting too complicated.

Tip #3 Texture up...

If you don't want your boy cards to look too plain, add  a bit of texture.  You can do something as simple as distressing the edges of your card stock, tearing your background or adding a textured embellishment.  You can also add texture with an embossing folder, textured paper, cloth, ribbon (yes, ribbon), burlap, washi tape or even aluminium foil from the kitchen.  This added texture can also add interest when you have limited colours and shapes.

An embossing folder in the background and 

some patterned paper adds texture and colour to this simple card. 

The tyre tracks are a washi tape I bought from Kaisercraft (from the discount bin)

I used glitter paper behind the sentiment for some extra texture.  

The random grunge type background was just ink blending through different stencils.  

I love the stick on dots added as embellishment. 

Tip #4 Keep it Simple

While it's possible to get some awesome images for masculine cards, don't panic if you don't have them.  Only one image is really needed.  A few candles on a birthday card, a cake or a couple of balloons will get you a long way.  As you've seen in the cards above, you can create something great for your guy, with just a large sentiment and a geometric background.

I made this card with left over scraps!  The sentiment is the real star of the show in this card.
I made this card for my nephew, who loves RED!  

Here are some more masculine cards I have made.

Dog's are man's best friend, Right? 

I made this card for my nephew.

I used an embossing folder to make the brick wall

with Fired Brick (distress oxide ink) swiped across it. 

This card has the masculine colours, texture, distressed edges

and the cutest hero image, set up on an action wobbler.  

I used my alphabet dies to create my own sentiment. 

That's it for now.  Do you have a favourite stamp set that you use for masculine cards?  Do you have an awesome colour palette that works every time? Let me know in the comments!