Both ends of the spectrum....

..... the age spectrum that is. Having had five sons, who in turn have given us seven grandsons and now a great grandson, I find myself making more than my fair share of male cards, and as we all know, this is not the easiest of tasks. This week I have been making two cards; one for my brother who is 83 this week, and one for my great grandson, who unbelievably is one in a week or two. It seems no time at all since I was celebrating his safe arrival!

The Michael Powell stamp that was out of stock when I ordered it, has now arrived, so I decided to ink that up for my brother's card. I am not sure it was a very wise buy, though I do like it. It proved to be a very fiddly task colouring it. I used my copics because I like their brush ends for colouring small details. As with the previous one I did, I stuck fairly closely to the colour guide on the back of the stamp. 

When it was finished I cut it out and edged it with a dark blue ink pad. I then used double sided tape to mount it on some burlap and then onto some pebble scrapbook paper that has lurked in my drawer for a very long time. I used a small strip of mottled blue paper to cut a row of waves and glued this along the base of the card. The other thing I wasn't so keen on about this stamp was it's size/shape. The only real option was to use it on a lengthwise DL card, which I wouldn't usually do, but I don't like making A5 cards except for something very special, and our Post office ups the charges a lot for that size. So a sideways DL it had to be. I made a slight error in cutting the waves, but I didn't have any more of the paper so I used it anyway, and hid the mis-cut under a silver anchor charm tied with blue bakers twine and some of the frayed fibres from the burlap.

For my great grandson's card I used a super Mo Manning digi image that I spotted soon after Isaac was born, and bought ready for this card! 

I printed it off and coloured it, again using my copic markers. Then I couldn't find any paper that I liked to mount it up, so I went online and found a perfect digi set of Wild West papers, alphabet and embellishments on the Scrap Girls site. I printed off a sheet of the yellow paper with blue hobby horses to cover the base card, and a sheet of distressed blue from which I cut a scalloped square. (I actually cut it, with proper scissors. No machines or dies in site! That's very unusual for me). Then I used the alphabet set to make the Happy Birthday banner and added a horses head to each end. I printed these and cut them out, along with a sheriff badge that was also in the embellishment set. I coloured a number one  peel-off with a blue permanent pen and stuck it on the badge.

I am entering the first card in:

Party Time Tuesday's Challenge: By the sea.

and the second card in:

Fashionista Chalenge 5; Birthday or Baby (mine covers both).

I am also entering both cards in :

Sassy Cheryl's Challenge 127; All about the boys.

Make it Monday 101; Anything goes.