Let's Hear It For The Boys

 As it's Father's Day in the UK next Sunday we thought it was a good time to show the guys in our lives a little love - so all this week we're bringing you masculine themed projects as we know that sometimes guy cards can be a little tricky for some.

I'm kicking things off today with 2 cards and a little gift - perfect pocket money project if you're looking to get crafty with the kiddies.

I picked up this enamel mug at a local home store for the grand sum of 49p!  I love enamelware as it reminds me of my Dad's mash can when I was a kid so this was a nice nostalgia trip for me.  Plus enamel is easy to work with but you could use a ceramic one for this technique too.

I die cut a moustache using the great paper smooches die set from some post it tape and wrapped the "waste" around the mug so I could press embossing ink directly from the pad onto the mug.

It's then simply a case of sprinkling on a layer of black embossing powder, tapping off the excess and then carefully removing the post it tape taking care not to disturb the powder before heating it with a heat gun - be careful where you hold the mug - it will get hot!

To add the sentiment underneath I dusted the mug with an embossing buddy before carefully rolling the sentiment onto the mug (a little blue tac holds the mug in place on your desk to stop it moving helps this process).   If you get a little stray powder, use a thin paint brush to brush it away before heating.  The sentiment is from Daddy Yo again by Paper Smooches.

I used the same stamp set to make the Father's day card to go with it.  I stamped the sentiment in black onto green card and then stamped the bottle in embossing ink in a row before adding ultra fine powder and cutting it out.  It's popped up on foam over a kraft base card (kraft always adds a masculine touch I feel) that has some great added detail thanks to the new double pierced rectangle dies from Avery Elle which I used to emboss rather than cut in this instance.  I added a couple of moustaches to match the mug.

Now, not everything we'll do this week will be for Dad's - we don't all have them anymore sadly - but we just wanted to focus on fellas for a week.  So my last project is an idea you can do for any guy for any occasion (well for anyone really).   I thought of word searches when I first saw the new alphabet from Lawn Fawn, so I thought a birthday word search in masculine colours would make a great guy's birthday card.

 

This is a very simple one layer card - all you need to do is lightly mark out a grid at 1½ cm intervals and then stamp your "sentiment" or in my case lots of words associated with birthdays in your chosen colour and then randomly stamp letters around the words in a second colour.  Once the ink is dry, rub out your grid.

Don't forget to come back every day this week for lots of masculine inspiration - we have a really fun week planned for you.

NEWS FROM THE STORE:

• Mama Elephant's latest release should be here on Monday fingers crossed.
• Our new brand, Stamping Bella, will be here this week.
• We have some limited restocks from Wplus9 shipping on Monday (sorry no giraffes as they have sold out of those too but I will get them back as soon as I see they have them)
• We have reordered from Lawn Fawn and that should ship in a week or two.