Masculine Card

We always tease our son because he is a wealth of useless knowledge.  But I can’t fault him much, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  I’m the same way, and I think I learned the trait from my Dad.  Today, I’m going to share some useless knowledge with you.  Just because I want to.

• Americans purchase approximately 6.5 billion greeting cards each year. Annual retail sales of greeting cards are estimated between $7 and $8 billion.
• It is estimated that 80% of these cards purchases are made by women.

• Every year, Most people now acknowledge many more birthdays than ever before because of Facebook, but they aren’t necessarily sending fewer cards as a result. (I find this one interesting, as many other industries have taken a hit due to digital accessibility (print magazines, print newspapers)).

Did you catch the 80% bought by women part?  Yeah, it honestly doesn’t surprise me in the least, as women tend to be more wordy and such.  I’ve always had a hard time finding masculine cards I liked.  And I can’t help but wonder if it’s because of women are majority of the customer base.  I don’t subscribe to the idea that there are no differences between men and women.  Nope, nope.  So following the reasoning, it would make sense that it’s easier to find a feminine card than masculine (I think many masculine cards are still a bit feminine).

Along those lines, I always struggle making masculine cards.  Which is something I find a little ironic, because I really like simple cards.  Often masculine is (can be) simple as well.  But for some reason, I’m not good at mixing the two.

Well, this week we needed a card for a guy who we work with in a professional relationship.  He is by far the best person we have to deal with at his job, so we wanted to express our appreciation.

I have several Father’s Day stamps, but I don’t have any masculine, non-holiday sets.  But I pulled out an anchor from this Stampin Up Guy Greetings set and decided to watercolor it.  I find watercoloring to be the most relaxing way of coloring an image.  It’s all a matter of personal preference though.

Supplies:  Bazzill cardstock, Stampin Up (Guy Greetings stamp), Tim Holtz distress inks, Canson watercolor paper, Papertrey Ink (sentiment stamp), Simon Says Stamp stitched rectangle dies