21st Birthday Wishes to my son....a little early ; ) MMSC54

If you hadn't noticed, I have not been keeping up very well with my crafting lately, but I really wanted to make a card for my son's 21st birthday this year...which isn't until June, but I wanted to be ready, since everything else is taking a back seat.  I didn't want to find myself at birthday week and no card.  I can't believe my little boy is a man now!!  So, as most of you know and even share with me the difficult task of finding a suitable image for a masculine card....I remembered that I had this Thomas Kinkade stamp from the kind folks at Cornish Heritage Farms, and I thought it would work nicely for what I had in mind.  I will tell you though that I had quite a time getting a good image with this, and I don't know if it is just me, or the ink I am using or the color or what, but I could not get the detail in this image that I was hoping for.  It was a very dark, line-blended image that was hard to color as a result.   If anyone has any tips that they would be willing to share with me for stamping images like this, I am all ears.  Please tell me!  I have tried black memento ink, staz on ink, and even lighter colored inks, and still not satisfied : (

On a more positive note, I was pretty pleased with how this came out in the end, and I think that it passes just fine for a masculine card.  However, I think that any woman would love a card like this too.  I know that I just adore all of the Thomas Kinkade artwork.

I have missed my friends/family over at the Midnight Madness site, so I am entering this card into the MM challenge this week, and I really look forward to hearing from my old DT sisters over there.  They are having a huge anniversary celebration over there, and this week, they are having a barbeque and want us to share a favorite of ours about barbeques.  I have LOTS of favorites, but since I am lacking pictures, I will share that my favorite place to barbeque is at the lake.  We used to do this all the time when I was little, and those are memories that have stayed with me throughout my life.  I think that will always be a favorite barbeque place for me.  I have to say though, that even without having a picture, my favorite dish for a barbeque is potatoe salad.  Wish I didn't love it so, but I do!  You should drop by the MM blog and see all the great recipes that the girls have shared over there and then join in on the fun.
 I flipped the sketch and took a few liberties with it to make it fit my needs, but I think it is still a nice flair to the sketch.  I hope my friends over there agree. 

Thanks for sharing some time with me today, and drop me a line if you have a moment.  I would love to hear your comments on my card.  I could use the reassurance that this card is masculine enough for a 21 year old ...man...
Have a beautiful and blessed day!


Challenges for this card in addition to the Midnight Madness include:

Allsorts: Birthday
Cards for men: Outdoors
Crafty Calendar: Great outdoors
Crafty Creations: Around the world
Cute Card Thursday: someone special
Fab n Funky: metal mania..I used eyelets
OCC: masculine birthday
Practical Scrapper: Patterned paper
Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge: Metal..I used eyelets
Simple Doodles: On my mind
Stamp, Scrap & Doodle: Masculine
Stamptacular Sunday: Love a tree
Stampin' for the Weekend: Masculine
Sweet Stampin': Get personal
The Crazy Challenge: Something new
Totally Stampalicious: Photo corners..hope my vintage corner dies count..
Stampin' Royalty: Family
Whoopsi Daisy: As you like it
Crafty Ann's: Anything goes

Hugs,