Masculine cards are hard to do

I think it's a widespread problem - cards for men are difficult.  I recently bought a few things specifically with male cards in mind - this cars background from Hero Arts, and a Cosmo Cricket Mini Deck of patterned paper, called "the boyfriend".  Here's a card I made using both of these, for my dad's birthday on the weekend. 

Birthday girls

These are the cards I made for my nieces:  Lauren, who turns 9 on the 31st of May, and Samantha, who turns 5 on the 1st of June.  Happy birthday, beautiful girls!!

Yep, there's my favourite background stamp again!

Stamp party cards

My niece, Lauren, is turning 9 this week, and she is having a party with some of her friends from school.  A cardmaking party!!  And guess who has been asked to be guest teacher at this party - yes, yours truly.

I made these cards today as demonstration cards.  Most of the girls at the party attended Lauren's birthday party a few years ago, when we made some very simple cards - this time, we'll be using some things that they didn't use last time, like Versamark ink for a watermark background, and embossing folders with the Big Shot machine.

This one has diamond Stickles on the flower, and Crystal Effects on the cupcake icing, but I think we'll leave out the Crystal Effects tomorrow - it will take too long to dry.

Wow, were we stupid!

Here is another card made from stamps from Hambo stamps.

Japanese adhesive material

A little while ago (last year), one of my very best friends, Sharyne, and her partner, Andrew, went on a trip to Japan.  When they returned, they had bought me a Japanese good luck charm, as well as some absolutely beautiful Japanese papers and papercrafting goodies! (including a roll of papers in one of those cardboard cylinders that they carried all around Japan with them! I felt very special!).

One of the things in the stash was a roll of beautiful printed material with adhesive on the back, so that all you need to do is cut it to size, remove the backing paper, and stick!  So easy, and so gorgeous.  Here's a card I made on the weekend using this lovely product.

I kept the card simple - to let the material shine :)

I will have to ration the rest - not much left :(  But I still have plenty of the handmade paper Sharyne bought for me - will have to use some more of that soon.  It's one of those things that I think is common amongst papercrafters - you have some product that you love so much that you just don't want to use it, because then it will be gone! (I have a few handmade papers in that category.........)