Creating a Masculine Anniversary Card

Hi and welcome back! I am so glad you visited today, because I am sharing an Anniversary card I made for my husband featuring Joy Clair Designs! Blessed and Grateful is a new release this month that features traditional Autumn images, but what I love about it is that you can make beautiful masculine cards with it. I sometimes struggle with making masculine cards, like so many others, but Blessed and Grateful doesn’t disappoint! I think the key to masculine cards is picking the foliage images or coloring the floral in darker non traditional feminine colors.

Before we talk about the design process, let’s take a look at the stamp set!

Design:
I designed my card in photo shop elements and chose to use the foliage image twice in my layout. I love digital stamps such as the Blessed and Grateful set because you can size and manipulate the images. Do you notice how the berries are oriented to the left? I “mirrored” the image by using the free form tool. There are other free programs out there that you can use to obtain the same results. In addition to mirroring the images I changed the sized and layered the images over themselves by moving one image to the back.

Coloring:
I chose four colors in the same color family to which resulting in the shading and highlights in the individual leaves. I chose the BG 90 family of Copic markers because they are my favorites tones, but you can choose what suits you. Anywhere you see a leaf overlap, you add the darkest color to form a shadow. I also used a flicking motion with all four colors to get a nice texture, but smoothed the lightest color over the entire leaf to get a good blend. My last step was to go back in with the darkest color to add final textures because that can get washed out with the blending.

Adding Interest:
To add more interest to this one layer masculine card, I cut out a mask of the Blessed and Grateful stamp set and temporarily tacked it down with Pixie Spray so that I could stencil over the image. By doing this it makes it appear to be behind the focal image and sentiment. I chose subtle hues of the same colors used in the foliage to accent the card. If you notice blended the distress oxides in areas where the colors complimented one another, which keeps the eye moving. For final touches I added a few gemstones to add shine.

One Last Look:

I hope this inspires you to take a look at the Joy Clair Designs Shop today!

I have a special discount code to the SHOP, JOYWILSON for an additional 5% off your order.

For more inspiration from the team and our fans check us out on social media:
–Joy Clair Designs Facebook Page
–Color By Faith Facebook Page
–Joy Clair Stamp Project Facebook Page
–IG
–Pinterest

Disclosure: The links below are affiliate links. If you decide to use these links to shop, you are supporting this blog, thank you! I may receive a small portion of the sale, at no extra cost to you. These products are endorsed by me, and I hope you will love them too.

If you are interested I buy all of my Copic markers from Scapbook Pal as they are a small company known for their wide selection, and fast shipping!

If you like this post, you may also find my post, Scandi Christmas interesting as it too is a masculine card.

Challenges entering:
World Wide Open Dt challenge
613 Avenue Create: September
Dare2b Artzy Challenge: favorite color

Until next time.. keep crafting!!