Is anyone else out there having difficulty producing a birthday card for a teenaged male??? He's not into sports so a sports themed card is not the right choice. Lighthouses and boats seem too grown up. Cutesy animals that I might even use on a grown man's card seem to say he's a little kid yet. I really struggle with this age group in the male sex.

I wanted to participate in a couple of different group events with this card which is why I chose this particular color scheme: Kiwi Kiss, Pumpkin Pie and Summer Sun. I apologize for the poor photo - it is either a result of the photo editing software I am using at work - or my camera is no longer working properly. Of the two I hope it is the software. But whatever is going on the image is soft and the color is not true. e.g. the stripes on the truck window are light blue and the light orange is actually Summer Sun!

The other group challenge event I was participating in was to use Sizzlits Dies to embellish the card. I love buttons and purchased the SU! Sizzlits Button die when it first became available - but this was the first time I used them. The die comes with 4 different button choices but my favorites are the little square/diamond shaped buttons. I think they're so cute.

The truck was colored using Koh-I-Noor pencils & mineral spirits on Whisper White cardstock. I love this technique because the colors blend so smoothly and remain vibrant and the pencils themselves are very inexpensive. Check out Gina K Design blog for a comparison between these pencils and Prismacolors. I was impressed! Seems I made the right choice - not just because of the money but for their blending capabilities as well.

That's it for today. If I get home and find that I can make the photo look more like the original card I will probably re-post it so you might want to take a peek at this post tomorrow and see if it looks any better.

Have a good day today and enjoy your weekend. If you get a chance to play this weekend I would love to see what you've made. Leave me a comment with an link to your blog or photo.

Thanks -

Jill