Happy Friday! Cards for the MEN in our lives

It's Superbowl weekend and each of us celebrates it a bit differently. Brent and I usually have a "Superbowl Commercial Party". Neither of us is really into sports much at all (ok, with exception of most of the Olympic Sports) and so we have a party to watch the commercials. This year our friends, the Coopers, are hosting it. HEHE! Basically, we get together, eat really good tailgate party junk food and yell, "SHUSH... QUIET.... COMMERCIALS are on... COME QUICK!"... lol! Generally we're playing games or just enjoying each other's company while the game is playing... but when those commercials come on, you'd better not interrupt! LOL!

Superbowl Weekend exudes "macho-ness" to me and I've been thinking that I need to spend a little time working on some more masculine cards for the men in my life. ("My Men" being, Husband, Brothers, Father, Father in law, etc.) I've got a good stash of swirly girly flowery and floofy cards... perfect for the women in my life, but I don't have much in the way of masculine... It seems that it's much easier for me to whip out something pretty and feminine.

Well, I got this really cool random stamped paper last fall from Brenda Harmless as part of our 2 part swap and decided that the design was decidedly masculine to me. I realized this morning that I have not shown this card yet. It is one of my absolute favorites of last year! I was stressing about what to do with the fish paper, but one night I had a fabulous dream about this fish card.. LOL! I woke up in the middle of the night, went out to my kitchen and grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled out what I could remember.

It's kind of hard to tell in the photo, but I cut the fins with my kraft knife and popped them out with some glass micro beads that I piled up on heaps of liquid glass, I rubbed some glitter on the scales of the fish. The sand section in the frame is actual sand paper from my woodshop. LOL! I just tore a few pieces, layered them and glued them in place. The frame is one of my favorite aspects of the card. I snipped some twigs from old trees along the creek in our back yard and glued them together with liquid glass and then tied with twine. It was a big pain and took forever, but I like the finished product. :) I chalked all over the card with pearlesent chalks from Pebbles, Inc and dirtied up the card with ink and doodled with a marker. It was sooo much fun to make!

So this weekend, while your men (or even you) are enjoying the Superbowl festivities, your challenge is to create some fun, masculine cards for the men in your life. Use something out of the ordinary on your card (like I did with my twigs!) and post a link (comment) on this post to your card and I will pick a random entry on Monday for a surprise paper crafting treat! Show us some masculine themed cards! :)

Click image for larger, detailed view

Materials used:
American Crafts Ribbon
CTMH Papers and Inks
Stamps - Roughin It & Outdoor Trek by CTMH (not sure which set the RS paper came from)
Misc - Liquid Glass, misc metal embellishments, twine, glass micro beads, twigs.
Cuttlebug machine and embossing folders, sand paper.