masculine cards . . . .

are difficult for me most times.

This is a card I made for a friend whose birthday is this week.  The tree stamp is an older Penny Black.  I used a technique that I learned years ago, but had pretty much not done in forever, called shadow stamping (or offset stamping).  A card made by the oh, so talented Elizabeth Allan recently made me want to try it again. 

Elizabeth used delicata gold ink to stamp over her tree but I don't have that pad.  I used Brilliance lightning black, which has some very subtle gold undertones that are hard to capture in a photo.  It is one of my favorite Brilliance pads.  The green ink is Memento bamboo.  The sentiment is Hero Arts and the paper is Basic Grey. 

Have a great day!