Masculine birthday card

There are lots of birthdays coming up in my family, so this card will go to one of the guys celebrating. I used this week's sketch from the Card Positioning System Blog, CPS262.
The tiger (from Raindrops on Roses) is stamped in Colorbox Chalk chestnut roan ink; I did an out-of-the-box cut and cut it with an oval nestie.  The sentiment is computer generated, and I didn't realize at the time that the font I chose doesn't line up on the bottom of the letters. That probably doesn't bother most people, but I've spent a fair share of my working life making sure type lines up (among many other picky details, of course), and it does bother me.
Papers are all from a ridiculously old pack from DCWV, which until I made this card had been used exactly once.  I must use up old supplies!
The embellishment is baker's twine strung through a spacer bead that sort of vaguely looks African. It's so hard coming up with good embellishments on masculine cards. What sort of embellies do you use on a card for a guy?

Another rose card

The subject of this week's Teapot Tuesday challenge was tattoos.  I prefer my ink on my fingers and my stamps rather than on my body, thank you very much, but I thought a rose would make a nice tattoo, so I created this card.  I used the current Card Patterns sketch (#162) for the layout

The stamp is one I picked up at a stamp show in a bargain bin. It's inked in Memento black and colored with pencils.  The ribbon is from a grab bag of stuff I bought at a stamping consignment sale on Saturday; the ribbon is from Elements, and someone on SCS pointed out it looks kind of thorny.

Instead of the buttons the Card Patterns sketch showed in the lower left corner, I just did a little paper piercing, because I didn't want to clutter the card too much, and I do like this image a lot; didn't want to take attention away from it.

Time to start thinking about Mother's Day

This time of the year is a busy one for birthdays and holidays in our family. I decided to use the Really Reasonable Ribbon Challenge (RRR46) as a jumping off point for a Mother's Day card, since I know I need to make one. The challenge was to make a card with black and white and one accent color. I chose red.

The rose square is from Zim Prints, which I think is a long-gone stamp company. I used to love stopping by their booth at the stamp show, and they haven't been at the show for years. The actual stamp is larger, and I trimmed it down to fit.  Roses were inked in Memento Black and colored with pencils. I added some spica pen accents to give them a little shine because they looked kind of flat.

Sentiment is computer generated and accented by some red gems.  The strips behind the rose images are ribbons -- two strips of a narrow red ribbon and one strip of a wider black and white gingham. They also add a little sparkle and texture to the card.

I'm off to make masculine birthday cards now.