Saturday 10 September 2011

Birthday card for a man - don't faint clean away!

Out of all the posts on here, only 16 are birthday cards for boys/men, and most of those are for boys rather than men - shame on me! Like so many, I struggle with card for 'chaps' but yesterday was different. I was rootling around in my stash, sighing at so much unused stuff and thinking that I really need to send a lot of my toppers to a charity for use in day centres and such where they would be easy for others to play with. Nothing wrong with a bit of picking up and sticking down - that's probably how most of use started out on this road years ago anyhow :) But, I'm digressing (yay, today's big word!).

In one of several boxes of toppers I found a little packet of shirts I'd already made up - from a kit bought about six years ago. We were on holiday in Gibraltar and came across a little (tiny really) craft shop tucked away in a quiet back street run by an English ex-pat - I think she had the shop mostly for fun rather than profit. I came away with some odds and ends, including a packet containing six 3" x 6" strips of precut paper and a little guide with a hand drawn sketch. It was all just folding with four little snips to finish off - great fun too!

This is the card I made yesterday:
The hardest part was finding the matching stripey background paper - it came from one of those double pages of free papers in the centre of a craft magazine yonks ago. You know, the ones you wonder if you'll ever really use :)

Actually, the really hardest part was not poking at the 'buttons' before the Liquid Pearls dried :))


I used:


- C6 plain white card stock
- Background striped paper, from stash
- Red and white backing card, both from snippets
- Folded shirt - from stash
- Buttons on the shirt - White Opal Liquid Pearls
- Sentiment - Craftwork Cards

I've got the rest of these little babies to use up and, since St Luke's Hospice Charity Card Challenge have listed Male Cards in their most requested cards, I know just where these will be going once I finish playing :) I hadn't realised that St. Luke's was the charity that my late (and much missed) French teacher Betty supported until just the other day - so it seems extra fitting that I've been sending cards to them for their fund raising without even making the connection. Someone up there is still giving me a little nudge now and then :) Right up until our last reunion she was teasingly threatening to give us detention - and I had enough of that at school (yeah, OK, generally for talking too much!).


I've mooched round some of the current challenges and would like to enter this offering to:

Totally Gorguss Challenge #97 - It's a Man Thing

Phindy's Place Challenge #72  - Stripes Somewhere

Hope you all have a great weekend, whatever the weather and whatever you're doing!

Di
x

14 comments:

  1. Hi Di, (I always have tos stop myself writing Pixi there!!) great male card and a really useful way of using up those striped papers that remind me of men's pyjamas :)Hope you enjoy the Paupers Pie today - I haven't been delving into ye olde recipe book this week and won't be next week either as I'm preparing to go to the craft retreat at Bolton Abbey I've booked myself on - the indecision on what to pop into my tote will take up all my thinking time from now until Friday :) Elizabeth x

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  2. Just checked last comment - after it's gone of course - can you tell I'm using a new keyboard :)

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  3. Hi Di, Thank you so much for congratulating me on winner the P/B Challenge it came as a lovely surprise to me as there were lots of lovely cards out there! anyway, back to your card which is truly lovely as always you have so much talent! nice to see male cards as l always find them not easy to make but l think there may be more choice around now, the background is just perfect for the image and great colours too:) Sandra H

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  4. Fab male card! I had a small paper pack for this purpose, and didn't use them for years and just threw them away in the end. YES, I did just say I threw them away! Shock, horror!

    That was in the days before I saw Jules's snippets challenge of course! LOL!

    Hugs, Sarn x

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  5. Oh this reminds me when I saw Stephanie Weightman at a Craft Show (this was when I could walk around them!) and she showed me how to make the little shirts, I still have a pad somewhere, so must get it out again - thanks for the memories!

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  6. Di...what a great "man" card. I wonder why so many of us struggle to make these foreign things - LOL. This is super inspiration as I have quite a few man birthdays coming up. Girl stuff seems so much easier, eh? Have a great weekend!

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  7. Di, lovely card and perfect for a guy, I think I am the exception as I love male cards and struggle with the pretty pretty girly ones lol

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  8. Looks just like 'The Docs' stripey shirt. Now I could do with some stripey paper cos I need to make a seaside beach hut. Don't suppose you remember which magazine in cam ein yonks ago? No thought not.Lol.
    Hugs Mrs A.

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  9. Great male card, I once bought a shirt stamp that I thought would make a great card for men, cost a fortune but could never seem to make a good card with it, sent it in a charity bag in the end..
    Hope you have a good weekend too.

    Kath x

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  10. Hi Di, what a great male card. I love the shirt and the backing papers go with it perfectly.
    Have a lovely weekend!
    Diane xx

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  11. Hi Di! Fantastic card! That shirt reminds me of a baseball jersey and I need to make a baseball related card. Humm wonder if I can find some stripy paper like that in my stash. Hope the weather is treating you kindly it's like an inferno here.
    Hugs
    Bernie

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  12. Hello Di
    What a clever stripy card and love the "pearl" buttons. Thank you for joining in with this week’s Phindy’s Place Challenge, do hope you’ll play again this Friday!
    Hugs
    Anne

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  13. A great "man" card. Thanks for joining us at TG this week
    hugs sarah xxx
    p.s. I have candy on offer on my blog

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  14. so glad you entered this in the Phindy Challenge - love your layout and those papers...i will be casing
    (-:

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