A Guy Card!

It seems we all struggle with ideas for cards for the men in our lives.  Flowers and butterflies are easy, but coming up with an attractive design that works for a male recipient can be a challenge.  Last weekend one of my hostesses wanted to do two birthday cards at her workshop, so I thought we should do one girlie one and one that could work for either gender.  I remembered seeing a card done by Christy Butzen on Stampin' Connection a while back and decided to try something similar.  You can view Christy's card here.  Here is my version:

Martini Card featuring the Cheers to You stamp set.

Close up of sentiment

Inside of card using sentiment from the Party Hearty set

One of the things I like about this card is that it could work for just about any occasion, including a birthday.  It isn't often I come up with something that has multiple uses.  One of the things I loved about Christy's version was the shading effect she had on her olives.  Had this card not been for a workshop of 15 guests, I would have done the same thing she did, but, knowing how chaotic a workshop of that size can get, I wanted to keep it as simple as possible.  So, here is the rather simple how-to for this card:

I started by punching several old olive ovals using my medium oval punch (the one from the Holiday Mini but that is still available!) I then punched several little circles in poppy parade using the circle punch from the Itty Bitty punch pack.  Using my glue stick, I assembled my olives.  I then glued them all over a 5 1/4" x 4" piece of basic black cardstock, ensuring some extended off the edge of the page.  I trimmed those ones and then ran the whole thing through my Big Shot using the square lattice embossing folder.  I then adhered the olive piece to a whisper white card base.  I stamped the martini glass on a scrap rectangle of whisper white cardstock using Staz On ink and the sentiment using poppy parade.  I coloured in the olive in the martini glass using my old olive and poppy parade markers, rounded two corners of the white piece and layered it on a slightly larger piece of poppy parade.  I added two brass brads and adhered it to my card using dimensionals.  For the inside of the card, I again stamped the martini glass using Staz On and coloured the olive.  I stamped the sentiment from the Party Hearty set in basic black on a scrap of poppy parade and punched it out with my modern label punch.  I adhered it inside my card using dimensionals.

An easy card, perfect for a workshop and for any guy (or gal) in your life!