Metallic Masculine Card

Today's card is a VERY masculine card. It's for my brother who celebrated his 32nd birthday this week. He's really into all things metal - he's always tinkering with cars in the garage and he likes everything to be 'just so' - hence the card I've created for him is very balanced/symmetrical, very metallic and no-frills. It's not necessarily my kind of card (if I'm truly honest, it's really not my thing!) but it just know he'll love it. I hope you will like it too, but I understand if you don't as this is not everyone's cup of tea ;0)

The card incorporates real metal, from a Pepsi can I (very carefully!) cut up, flattened, punched out several squares and cuttlebugged using the Swiss Dots embossing folder. I've used thin chipboard squares to create a chess board effect alongside the metal squares. I stapled the chipboard squares in a cross just to add to the metal theme. I then had to run these through the Cuttlebug to flatten the staples to allow me to adhere them down to the project. I did this by stacking my A plate, an embossing folder (with nothing inside it - this is just to pad out the stack), then a B plate (embossing plate), a piece of card to cushion the staples and a final B plate (cutting plate).

Sounds complicated, but essentially all I've done is create a stack thick enough to compress the staples, without causing damage to my machine ;0) You may need to vary this stack as each machine may differ. DON'T FORCE your machine, just remove a layer of c.s. if it's too difficult to turn the handle.

The sentiment part of the card uses a Fun Doodle Tags stamp set from MyGrafico.com (no longer available from MG, the link to the designer's website, Pixels&IceCream, can be found here). I just *HEART* this stamp set! It has so many uses! I'm always flapping around trying to find something suitable to stamp my sentiment onto, so this a great stamp set that's a must-have for everyone's crafting stash. And don't forget, as it's digital, you can resize any of the 8 tags to fit any width of sentiment, and therefore to suit any project - so that makes it great for scrapbooking too.

So, the video is below. I hope you enjoy watching me make this card - if you do, please hop over to YT to rate and subscribe. Your comments are always appreciated and I hope it inspires you to be ever more creative with those pesky masculine cards!! ;0)