Howdy, friends. Can you believe it’s Monday already? There was lots on the to-do list this weekend which meant that the weekend flew by, but it felt good to get most of what we had on the list all done. We bid adieu to the Christmas decorations (am I the only one who waits until February to take it down?) and put the house back together.

This week we’re beginning a new design series that’s all about the fellas. It can sometimes be hard to make cards that feel more masculine, but we’re going to explore our crafty stash together and find some shortcuts to masculine designs. And today’s shortcut begins with a sketch. I’ve found that a geometric feel to a card layout can lend itself to feeling more masculine. With a more neutral color palette and some earthy patterns in the Autumn Toile and Nature Walk papers, we have the perfect recipe for a card fit for a dear dude. (Did you catch my play on words there? *wink*)

We get started with a base of Crumb Cake cardstock. I used a sheet of the Mossy Meadow Nature Walk patterned paper to serve as the backdrop for the design. Our three repeating shapes are from the Nested Essentials die set and are cut from a sheet of the Autumn Toile patterned paper. I really love how you can still make out the original scene as you look down the three shapes and how the deer repeat in each panel in a perfect triangle.

Today’s sketch is from the current Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge and also happens to be our current Luv 2 Stamp team challenge sketch. What do you think about using a sketch to inspire your masculine cards?

I hope you’ll drop by tomorrow to see what other tips we can use to make creating masculine cards a little less challenging!

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