happy {hairy] birthday to you

Hi, everyone! Happy Wednesday!

It's actually a pretty big day here in Central Ohio. There's an IKEA opening up in the Polaris area. WOW! What that means for me is that I'm going to do my best to avoid that area of town for about a month. LOL

It's been so nice to try and be a bit more creative this past week. The SAS4Kids dad/guy box has been sent to Nationwide Children's. Yep, that's the box that I tried my best to crank out as many guy cards as possible. (Truth be told, this one would be pretty easy to duplicate. Need to store that away for next year.)

Since Father's Day cards are done, I decided to make a birthday card instead. Three of our family's men have summer birthdays.  :)

SU stash and Simply Stories (take a hike) dp; SU black cardstock base; Recollections white cardstock
Paper Smooches mustache and bow dies, inked in DI abandoned coral and walnut stain
Spellbinders Nestabilities circle and SU stitched circle dies, SU tiny banner punch
Simon Says you matter sentiment, heat embossed with Versamark and SU white powder
adhesives: Scotch ATG; Zots glue dots; foam backing

Before I go into a few card details, let me thank Jocelyn Olson for a vertical card design of hers that appeared in Leisure Arts' Card Sketches for Paper Crafters. Jocelyn's card planted the seed -- and it was a pretty big CASE-seed, indeed -- to use a circle, mustache, and bow tie to represent my card's guy.

• Of course, the card was inspired by several masculine challenges. It was also inspired by the CAS-ual Fridays Use those Pattern Papers Challenge.  Jocelyn had adhered pink cardstock strips to a white base for her card's background. I really liked the idea of going with a non-traditional male color... and the barber-shop-pole feeling that the stripes evoked. So, I found a stash piece of SU pattern paper that gave the same vibe.
• In addition, the mustache and bow tie were punched from pattern paper. The mustache is a hardwood pattern piece from Simple Stories. The mustache outline is the reverse side of the background paper, and the mustache interior parts are from a coordinating stash piece of SU paper.

• Jocelyn used ribbon for her card's bow tie. It was really cute. But, in keeping with the CAS-ual Friday theme, I stayed with pattern paper. To keep the focus on the mustache, I went with a tone-on-tone effect that blended in with the dp. 
• Thin layers of foam backing were used to add dimension while keeping with the Cards in Envy thickness requirement. There is one layer of foam behind the black circle and the bottom of the bow tie. There is an additional foam layer behind the mustache.
• Before adhering the bow tie and mustache, edges were inked with abandoned coral and the walnut stain.

In addition to sharing this at CAS-ual Fridays, I'm also linking it up to the following masculine challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp Monday and Wednesday challenges,
• Shopping our Stash,
• Cards in Envy, and
• Paper Smooches monthly challenge.

Finally, I'm going to link this up for the July Guest Designer Search over at Paper Smooches.

Parting Thoughts

Huge thanks to all who have played along with our Springtime = Party Time Challenge at Words 2 Craft By. We'll be announcing our winner later this week, and a new challenge starts next Wednesday.

 Have a nice evening. Thanks for stopping and happy scrappin'!