Monday, February 13, 2012

Valentine Cards for Men and Boys


Trout Fishermen
by Salvador Caballero (1943-2006) Spain



I've been asked to show some cards for men and boys, and so I have quickly put together some things using clippings from catalogs and magazines. If you have a farm magazine, or anything to do with airplanes, ships, cars, fishing, or whatever you know will appeal to the men in your family, you can cut out pictures for these Valentines. Use the office glue sticks rather than wet glue on magazine clippings to keep them flat.


The Valentine at the top is made by folding white construction paper in half and cutting a heart shape, as I have shown in recent posts. Then, using a model car catalog, cut out a truck or car and paste it to the heart. Use whatever color contrasts the best with the vehicle color and makes it stand out the best.  Then, glue the white heart on to red paper, only on the left half. Cut out again around the white heart, leaving some red color paper to show outside the edges as you see here.


Fold a little piece of paper in half and paste one side of it down so that it opens like a book, and write the person's name or a greeting on it, as shown above.

Fold the unglued half over and put another view of the truck on it.


Decorate the edges by swirling colored glue or puff paint in a pattern, and then put some glue on the bed of the truck and fill it with tinsel hearts. If you have none, cut out some small hearts and glue them down.

Some men collect matchbox cars, which are not at all expensive (99c for hot wheels in some stores) and so you could include a gift of a collectible car with the card:



This next one has an outdoor scene from another catalog. Cover the catalog numbers or page numbers with a cut out heart, and cover corners that are cut irregularly, with more hearts if you like.  I've made another book like the previous one and pasted it on one side, so that it opens with the message.
Glue the heart on a bigger piece of paper of another color and cut around it with deckle edge scissors or plain scissors.

Instead of the old message "Be Mine," I've written "You're Mine."

Here are some samples of free Victorian clipart you can print to put on cards. 

This one would look great in the middle of a card,
and so would this,
but the ships look more adventurous.


Here's another piece of clip art from a catalog. I liked the tea set and used it to make a very quick card for a friend.
Not all Valentines have to be heart shaped. Try putting a scene in the middle of a folded card and just adding hearts from paper.

Another example of using catalog and magazine pictures for clip art. The paper is not as quality as the purchase art stickers and scrapbook clip art, but it is great when you don't have any fancy papers.

7 comments:

Lydia said...

I have one more paper project to show you and then I hope to have some sewing things here. Either that or I will go back to posting stern lectures ;-)

Anonymous said...

I have enjoyed your paper crafts very much lately.

Oh I do hope you do some sewing things. I'm in the mood to sew and am taking at my patterns and fabric stash with gusto.

I had a plan for sewing a year ago, but life gets in the way and I hadn't been able to get to the sewing until just recently. Am thoroughly enjoying my sewing time.

Happy Valentine's Day to you and your family.
Mrs. J.

Anonymous said...

These are also quite nice. Do you make envelopes for your larger cards, wrap them in tissue paper or just hand them out? The tea set in the last card is very nice also, would you share where it is from. Among other things I am brewing thoughts over a small gifting I might give to some of the girls at a school where my oldest did her student teaching. It is an inner-city low income school and the kind of school, where a young girl in kindergarten might not really know what a teacup and saucer is, let alone actually have seen one. And sadly Wal-mart does not have teacups and saucers, neither does Dollar Tree have them.
I presume I speak for many--do share your sewing and paper crafting ideas with us as well as your fundamental living type posting as all are enjoyed. For those of us that are not feminist minded, they are not stern lectures just faith lessons.

Lisa said...

Thank you Lydia :)

Lydia said...

If you'll make sure the card fits in any envelope you already have, you;ll make it easier on yourself. I did some last year for this blog that fit in the long business style envelopes. I also have envelopes here somewhere, that you can make, but its just a whole lot faster to cut the cards the size of pre-made envelopes. If they are large cards, they can go in manilla style envelopes of all sizes or you can wrap them in tissue paper as you suggested, which I think is perfect since pulling such cards out of an envelop might scrape off some of the stickers and things.

Barbara said...

Very clever. Thanks for the inspiration!

LeeAnne, Style N Season said...

It's alright, Lady Lydia, I love reading your stern lectures! ^_^

I don't agree with every single thing you wrote, but I got inspired by a lot of them! Thank you and keep on those 'stern lectures', please!

LeeAnne, Style N Season