Creating A Masculine Anniversary Card

This week, my husband and I will be celebrating twenty-seven years together and I found it difficult to find a card that wasn’t floral-ly, mushy, and girly. What does a cardmaker do? She searches the internet for a card sketch, then digs through her stash to create a masculine card for her sweetheart that is more fitting to his personality.  This week’s card design comes to you courtesy of the Atlantic Heart Sketch challenge. 

I wanted to keep it super simple and use up a few of my leftover stickers and papers from my Timber collection. With the new catalog on the horizon and products arriving to my door soon, I wanted to start using up some of these items before they were sold out on my website. 

The background was created using the sketch as a guide.  I cut down some leftover Timber paper scraps and zip-strips to create the background and added some zig-zag stitching on the sides. These were hand-stitched. Unfortunately, my sewing machine decided to go on strike along with my deep freeze this past week. 

I wanted to keep the rest of the card masculine and simple.  I didn’t have an anniversary stamp that would work for the sentiment shown in the sketch, so I chose to use a sticker instead.  I think that the “keeping it handsome” phrase is perfect for my hubby.  

I cut a chevron into the sticker so that it matched the sketch and looked more like a sentiment on the card. The sticker was a little shorter than I needed it to be, so I added a piece of the Ax Border on the right side to make it appear a little longer. 

The mountain scene behind the deer and the little red heart are also stickers from the Timber collection.  The mountain sticker was trimmed down to fit behind the sentiment. If you look at the sticker sheet above, you can see where I trimmed the image. I will probably use that boat on a fishing layout later. 

The deer and the two kraft colored hearts come from the package of Timber Die-cuts. I wanted to keep this card masculine and stick to the anniversary theme.  I don’t think the hearts deter from the masculinity of the card and they were just too cute not to add to the design. 

The final addition was a wooden arrow which I debated using, but, now that I look at the overall piece, I am glad I added it.  This Timber collection has been one of my favorite this season.  I am currently working on a plans for few layouts using the scrapbook kit and working on using up some more of my stash on some other projects.  I will be so sad to see this one go. 

I hope that today’s project inspired you to try something new and join the Atlantic Hearts Sketch challenge.  Those sketches are always inspiring to me and I enjoy a challenge.  They offer a new sketch each week. I encourage you to stop by their site and give a few a try.