As mentioned in my "Summary of Christmas cards for 2016"-post from yesterday (http://www.makeyourlifecolourful.com/single-post/2016/12/17/Summary-of-Christmas-cards-for-2016) I would do a guy appropriate Christmas card - post. There is not to much bling on this card but you can debate if a guy might like this sort of image. I personally love the LOTV stamps for men. In this card I used the "Festive Lantern" one.

Frankly, I LOVE a lot of the LOTV stamps. You should really check them out if you haven't already: LOTV stands for "Lili of the Valley" and shipping is free worldwide for any order of 10 English Pounds or more. http://liliofthevalley.co.uk/

I started out with applying some of the EK Success Powder Tool to prevent the embossing powder to adhere to places where there is no Versafine ink, and then I stamped the Festive Lantern stamp on Strathmore Bristol Smooth Surface paper with "Onyx Black" ink from Versafine and heat embossing the image with clear embossing powder.

The heat embossing is not a necessary stap but it helps keeping the water from my Pentel Water Brush and the ink from the Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers within the bounders and it doesn't matter how much water I ad the lines stay crisp and black. I feel it also gives some dimension to the image.

Then I coloured the image with the mentioned Zig Brush Markers and water. Normally I use the "Light Blue" Zig Brush Marker around the outside of the image but this time I wanted to try to create the illusion that our little guy is walking outdoors with his lantern lit when the day was ending so I used the "Blue Gray" Zig Brush Maker instead.

After the image was dry I applied some Ranger Glossy Accents to the glass of the lantern and the berries and some Stickles "Platinum" around the edge of the die cut circle. I also applied some "Clear" Wink of Stella to the package he is carrying. I let this sit and dry overnight.

In the meantime I worked on the background.

During the latest Black Friday deals I had a chance to try out a couple of brands that I haven't used before and one of my packages contained this Lil'inker Designs "Cover up die: Diamond Lace". I used it on some green card stock from my stash. I love red, green and gold for Christmas cards. But I try to use other combinations as well as you can see in the next picture (I used a blue, red and silver combination that also worked out nice).

Because this card is square and the die is rectangle-shaped I had to find a solution for that. So I added the metallic colours with a die from Die'sire (by Crafter's Companion) called "Parisian". I let it stick out a little sideways to make the card more interesting.

The next day the image was all dry and I matted it on some red (or blue for the other card) card stock that matched the base card that I was working with. This combination I adhered to the card base (the die-cuts mentioned before are already adhered to the base with normal liquid glue in this stage) with foam tape to create a little more dimension.

Then I finished these cards with some red/white bakers twine and the sentiment that says Merry Christmas in Dutch (that I also matted on red (or blue) card stock and put even higher foam tape on to make it a little higher then the image with our little guy (this also solves the challenge of adhering the sentiment over the bakers twine)).

That was it for these cards!

If you don't mind putting a little bling on your guy cards for Christmas then maybe the following pictures give you a couple of more idea's for fast Cristmas cards for men. How I made these cards is described in the post "Summary of Christmas Cards for 2016" from yesterday (you can find this post under the "Home"-tab of this website or click http://www.makeyourlifecolourful.com/single-post/2016/12/17/Summary-of-Christmas-cards-for-2016).

Hope you enjoyed! Have a nice day!

#LOTVFestiveLantern #makeyourlifecolourful #handmadecards #handmadechristmascardformen #Platinumstickles #LilinkerDesignsCoverupdiediamondlace #DiesireParisiandie #StrathomreBristolSmoothsurface #zigcleancolorrealbrushmarkers #versafineonyxblack #glossyaccents