I think we can all agree - creating cards for guys is no easy task! However using the right colors and going with a simple flower-free design can make it much easier. Today I have a masculine Happy Birthday card to share featuring a bold stamped background and a fun watercolor cake.

Masculine Birthday Card with Watercolor Cake by Yana Smakula for Hero Arts

Do you remember [hero_product_link sku="CL982" text="Luggage Tag Alphabet"] add-on stamp set from Hero's June MMH kit? I loved it the minute I saw it and used many times since. It is perfect for creating bold sentiments and even backgrounds for many different projects.

Masculine Birthday Card with Watercolor Cake by Yana Smakula for Hero Arts

To make it easier to stamp a sentiment and background for this card I mounted letters to spell Happy Birthday onto a large clear block. There's only one of each letter in the stamp set so I made sure to left room for the second P in "Happy" and also H, A and Y in "Birthday".

I stamped the first letters plus a hashtag using [hero_product_link sku="AF213" text="Wet Cement"] ink and stamped P, H, A and Y in [hero_product_link sku="AF222" text="Soft Olive"], I find these to be perfect guy colors.

Masculine Birthday Card with Watercolor Cake by Yana Smakula for Hero Arts

I knew I wanted to add a cake to this card, so I stamped cake layers from the [hero_product_link sku="CL950" text="Birthday Cake Layering"] set in [hero_product_link sku="AF101" text="Black"] ink, cut images out using [hero_product_link sku="DI169" text="coordinating dies"] and colored with watercolors, again I went with masculine colors - brown and moss green.

To top my cake with something I used fedora from the [hero_product_link sku="CL948" text="Dapper Dad"] set, stamped it in [hero_product_link sku="AF311" text="Brown Ombre"] and cut out with my scissors.

Masculine Birthday Card with Watercolor Cake by Yana Smakula for Hero Arts

I foam mounted the cake onto the stamped panel (which was already adhered onto an A2 top folding card base) and added a simple [hero_product_link sku="PW110" text="white"] heat embossed Celebrate sentiment.

The Birthday Cake Layering set I used for the cake here is a great one for feminine cards, too! Check out this card on my blog featuring this set for additional inspiration.

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