A Man's Sole

I've been so excited to show you this set. We all know how difficult it is to create cards for men. I’m not talking little boys here. I mean MEN! (though they are all still like little boys, right? :) I wanted to design a set that would work for all the grown-up men in your life….even Grandpa. Thus, "A Man’s Sole" was born…a stamp set with a Men’s shoe theme! You can pick the shoes that fit the men in your life, whether he be more of a cowboy boots kind of guy, tennis shoes, or business/work shoes.

For these samples, I focused on Father’s Day…though this set could be used to make great birthday or other occasion cards/gifts as well. This first project I made for my husband, who is a business-type guy. (Those shoes look just like the shoes he wears to work every day.) The gift is a Shoe-Shine Kit and fits with the theme perfectly! I bought a little travel-sized kit at Target for about $10. I know that there are really nice shoe-shine kits out there if you wanted a nicer gift. (Check out the kits at One Cedar Lane.) But my hubby really just needed the basics so this little kit works great for him. I made the wrapper by cutting two 5” wide pieces of patterned paper. One piece is 8” long, and the second is 9” long so I could fold the top over into a little flap. I scored the bottom of each piece at 2” and then taped the two pieces together, and that’s it! An easy gift-wrapper. I also wrapped brown tissue paper around my kit. The stamped piece was made using a Nestabilities square die to give it a nice embossed, sophisticated look. I also stamped the circle design in brown ink down a strip of latte-colored paper and adhered that to the front of my wrapper. To tie my stamped piece on, I set two eyelets to the top of the stamped piece, punched two matching holes to the top of the wrapper, and tied it on with a leather shoelace. That’s right, I used leather shoelaces on both this gift and the matching card! Had to take the “shoe” theme to the limit!





I wanted to mention something about some of the stamps in this kits and about cling stamps in general. One of the great things about unmounted cling stamps is they are very easy to cut. A good pair of scissors will do it (I’ve even used bad scissors and it still works.) Some of the stamps in this set are in groupings..for instance the oval and the “Nobody could ever” sentiment. We paired these two so you could easily center the sentiment over the oval. However, if you wanted to separate them, you could easily cut the two images apart. This is also true for the words block in the set (see photo.)



This is the matching card for this gift. Once again, I’ve used leather shoelaces on the left. And I love the little footprint stamp..it’s one of my favorites in this set and has a lot of possibilities (I’ll post another idea with those footprints later in the week.)




This second sample is a gift I made for my Dad. Ever since I was a little girl, I’d ask my Dad what he wanted for Father’s Day or his Birthday and he’d always tell me “a can of mixed nuts.” So it’s been a tradition for me to give him nuts on Father’s Day every year! I picked up this American Crafts gift box at my LSS and it was very easy to dress up as a gift-container for my nuts. The solid circle image, the You’re #1 stamp, and the designy circle all work together and this sample shows how I’ve used that.




This last sample is a cowboy-style Father’s Day card. I couldn't resist playing with the little cowboy boot. I stamped the oval image directly on to my patterned paper and it looks like it was there all along! I also pulled out the zig-zag stitch from our Shapes and Stitches set. Gotta love the faux stitch!

Supplies used on these samples:
Patterned paper: “Island Waves” by 3 Bugs in a Rug (shoe kit gift)
“Brave” by Fancy Pants Designs (cowboy boot card)
Gift box by American Crafts
Ink: Ranger Adirondack Latte, Espresso, and Walnut Distress Ink
SU Buckaroo Blue

I hope you've enjoyed our Sneak Peeks and don't forget to join us tonight on our forum at 6PM PST for the Stamp Safari! It's going to be really fun. I wish I could play, but I know all the answers...ha ha. I'll enjoy watching you all on the Safari though. See you tonight!