Keep Your Head Up - Masculine Cards w/Dawn

Hello crafty friends! Yes, I'm still alive! I've taken a little hiatus from social media, I know. Not planned at all, but you know, life. Sometimes other priorities take center stage.

But, I've still been here and still doing my thing in the background. Our next release of new products will be coming at the end of August. I have a few more things that, again, took priority. But once those are complete, I'll be back in the saddle fully.

In the meantime, I have a couple of cards to share with you. I have shared these previously on Instagram, so if you follow us there, that's why they may look familiar.

If you have been on the fence about these little cuties from "Oh My Gostrich!", well, these might push you over the edge. Sorry. My absolute favorite use for this set is for masculine cards. Now it can be used for women or men, but I love that it's not girly or frilly, but also not the stereotypical "fish, tools, barbecue" motifs either.

It's still fun. I chose to pair it up with our Whimsy Alpha stamp set just to reinforce the quirkiness of it. And I kept the layout and design quite clean and simple.

I stamped "OMG" three times in a vertical stack using Whimsy Alpha in our Wild Mango ink. Using Copics, I colored and then die cut a male ostrich (let's face it, the male ostrich is so much prettier than the female ostrich) to pop up with foam tape right on top.

I added a banner from the Oh My Gostrich! Die and then stamped the sentiment to tie the background in with the sentiment. I left the inside blank so that I could fill it in when needed. (if it ever makes it to the mail box! haha) But there are a few sentiments included in the set the would complete the card and be suitable for many occasions, from birthday to encouragement.

I really loved this design, so I created another with a longer message for the background.

I arranged the letters on my MISTI to spell out "Keep Your Head Up". Any where I did not have enough of a duplicate letter, I just left the space open so that I could come back and add it after my initial stamping. I inked and then stamped all of my letters at once in Falling For Blue ink. I then came back in and stamped the missing letters in Silving Lining using an acrylic block. I did purposely leave out the "U" in the first pass so that I could balance out the design and stamp it in using Silver Lining as well.

Same as before, I colored and die cut another ostrich and then popped him up over the background sentiment. Before adhering him, I stamped and heat embossed my smaller "Things will get better" sentiment onto black cardstock and trimmed it down. I played around with the placement of both before committing to ensure that the sentiment underneath would still be legible even though portions where covered.

That's it for today. I hope that you enjoyed todays project! This really is one of my new favorite designs. If you don't have these exact sets, you could always play around with large alphabet stamps and different sets you may already own to create something similar.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope your week is off to a fantastic start!

Featured Supplies

For your convenience, here is a list of the featured supplies used on today's project(s), along with links to purchase. Please note: this list contains affiliate links.

Wplus9 White Cardstock Shop at: WP9	Wplus9 Black Cardstock Shop at: WP9	Tsukineko Versamark EMBOSS INK PAD Shop at: SSS | EH	Precision Heat Embossing Tool Gun Hero Arts Shop at: SSS
3M Scotch DOUBLE-SIDED FOAM TAPE Shop at: SSS	Sizzix BIG SHOT Shop at: SSS	EK Success CRAFT TWEEZERS Precision Tip Shop at: SSS	MINI MISTI PRECISION STAMPER Stamping Tool Kit Shop at: SSS | EH
Wild Mango PURE COLOR Dye INk Shop at: WP9	WOW Super Fine Bright White Embossing Powder Shop at: SSS	Sizzix BIG SHOT Shop at: SSS	Falling For Blue PURE COLOR Dye Ink Shop at: WP9
EK Success CUTTER BEE Scissors Shop at: SSS	Memento TUXEDO BLACK INK PAD Full Size Shop at: SSS	Sizzix Magnetic Platform Shop at: SSS	Inkadinkado EMBOSSING MAGIC Powder Bag Shop at: SSS
Silver Lining PURE COLOR Dye Ink Shop at: WP9	Oh My Gostrich! Shop at: WP9	Oh My Gostrich! Die Shop at: WP9	Fiskars 4 Acrylic BLOCKS SET w Storage Shop at: SSS
Copic Sketch MARKER W3 WARM GRAY Grey Shop at: SSS | EH	Copic Sketch MARKER W7 WARM GRAY NO. 7 Shop at: SSS | EH	Copic Sketch Marker W8 WARM GRAY NO.8 Shop at: SSS | EH	Copic Sketch Marker W1 WARM GRAY No. 1 Shop at: SSS | EH
Copic Sketch Marker W0 Warm Gray Shop at: SSS | EH	Copic Sketch MARKER 100 BLACK Shop at: SSS | EH	Whimsy Alpha Shop at: WP9