Bikes and mud and stuff..

Yikes. It's the FIRST of SEPTEMBER 2013 already.. Christmas is upon is boys and girls.

In better news though.. the first of the month means a brand new challenge over at My Mum's Craft Shop! This month it's ALL ABOUT THE BOYS!!

I always get comments on the male cards I post on my blog, asking me how I do them?! LOL!! I think a lot of people are intimidated by them, so through out this post I'll try and share a couple tips.

TIP ONE - always use bold, masculine papers. There are tonnes of paper packs out there now that make our job as paper crafters a hell of a lot easier when it comes to boy cards. I think male cards, as opposed to boy cards, are a little different. Choosing a more mature colour palette is important. This time round I went with brown and red, with blue and yellow to accent stuff. For this card I used some delicious My Minds Eye Collectable Remarkable collection! I matted some of this onto Papermania Kraft cardstock from Docrafts. I absolutely love that deep blue patterned paper!! I have added some die cut Postage Stamp borders to the top and bottom using what's becoming a staple in my crafting from My Favorite Things. 

I chose a motorbike and a background from MIC for my main event, and matted it onto some deep red cardstock (Cherry Cobbler from SU!). TIP TWO - keep the embellishments structured and angular. Avoid flowers! LOL! That's a given. Unless you know they love flowers. I have layered up a bunch of squares, rectangles, pinking circles and die cut letters to create some interest in two corners of the image layer. TIP THREE - buttons. Make use of that button stash. They're the perfect 3D embellishment to create a little extra interest on a masculine card. I also added a few Hobby House Rhinestones in Jubilee Red to match the main colour from my project and to finish up the two embellishment clusters. If you don't fancy buttons or rhinestones, STARS are also another winner!

So that's it from me for today! I do hope you spare some time to join in with us this month! There is plenty of inspiration over at the My Mum's Craft Shop BLOG to help you out!! xo