Dan's a man!

Well, actually we call him Danny...but now that wouldn't rhyme, would it? Anyways..."our little guy" turned 18 yesterday, it's so hard to believe! He was excited to point out that he's "a man now", but I was quick to remind him that he'll always be our little guy, or my baby...even though he now towers over both of us at well over 6 feet tall! So, what kind of card do you make for an 18 year old man/boy? Since I don't have any guitar stamps, I opted for one of my favorite old (retired) birthday sets - Prehistoric Party and I combined it with my newest birthday set- Crazy for Cupcakes.
This partying dinosaur image always puts a smile on my face...they look like they're having so much fun. I like that you can make the big guy look like he's holding something...in this case a trio of balloons which I paper pieced using the balloon image from Crazy for Cupcakes. To make them look a little more dimensional, I water colored the edges and added a highlight with my white gel pen. I also had fun adding lots of texture. I used a Fiskers Confetti embossing plate and ran the Real Red piece of card stock through my Big Shot. In place of ribbon (since ribbon would be deemed unmanly) I used the paper crimper to crimp a strip of Pacific Point card stock.

On a side note to those with the Big Shot: I recently got the Sizzix embossing starter pack. It comes with a silicone rubber piece, a different cutting pad, and 3 texture plates with 6 patterns. I used the silicone rubber piece & pad along with the Fiskers plate and noticed a huge difference with the embossing - it's more uniform and deeper. I suppose you would have good results with Cuttlebug folders as well. I can't wait until SU! offers some embossing options to use with the Big Shot!

Since guys like metal things I also made sure to add plenty of brads to this - I used some retired Vintage diamond shaped brads I had in my stash. When Danny opened it he said, "Wow...this may be one of the best cards you ever made". He liked the texture, the different size and the "metal things". He's usually the one I go to when I need an honest critique of my work...he has a good eye for design and isn't afraid to say if he doesn't like something. As long as I'm bragging about my boy, er, I mean man...I want to share a few of his graduation portraits. So far, we've only got to view them online, but I'm really happy with the way they turned out. Only problem will be tyring to decide which ones to buy!

Can you guess which one he likes best? The photographer actually laid down a line of lighter fluid and lit it for the last photo. I had to remind Danny not to try that at home! ha!

Thanks for stopping by...hopefully I'll be back posting a little more regularly now. Things are getting kind of back to normal around here. Have a good day!