The Great Outdoors with The Male Room

    This time at The Male Room we are looking for anything to do with 'the great outdoors'. This could be a card, a scrapbook page or anything else hand crafted as long as it's masculine and fits our theme.
    Please hop over to the challenge to see what the other DT members have created for your inspiration. You have until September 10th to join in.
    This card was made using a Creative Expressions stamp plate designed by Sheena Douglass called Canal.
    I began by stamping the barge in Distress Ink Faded Jeans once on the card and then a second time on a sticky note. I cut out the top part of the barge on the sticky note to use as a mask while I stamped the Cottage. Distress Inks will blur with water so I used a water brush to blur a few areas slightly, this also helps move colour to areas that may have not come out so well in the over stamping of the cottage.
    I like using monochrome images, they're simple but effective. I have also coloured the edge of the image area with the same ink to draw the eye into the picture. I used Distress Ink Chipped Sapphire to colour the edge of a piece of white card to use as a mat layer before mounting it all on a white card blank.
    The greeting is cut in satin silver card using a Britannia die and is stuck on with Cosmic Shimmer PVA.

House Of Cards Sketch

     This week it's Shabby and Vintage at House Of Cards with a monthly sketch. For those of you who don't know HOC yet we have a monthly theme with a weekly style. If you would like to know more then please join us here.
    I chose to use the butterfly as an overall theme on my card. The velum was a present from my Mum, I have chosen to use the reverse, which gives a paler image, and mounted it on cream after tearing the edges and rolling one corner. I have stuck it down with some Invisidots for Velum which do seem to be invisible.

    I have used some paper lace across the velum with a die cut oval from Spellbinder-Floral Ovals in the centre, mounted on foam pads. To each side I have a paper flower made using Sizzix die Tattered Floral Garland, coloured with Distress Inks Wild Honey and Rusty Hinge, with a cream pearl in the middle.
    The butterfly is cut with a Marianne die from chocolate pearl card and stuck on the oval. I have yet to decide on the greeting as I don't know who will receive it but I think it will go on the bottom left corner.

Beach Braid

    This is a braid I made while on holiday in Dorset this week. I love beach combing, whatever the weather but this week has been glorious. Four beaches in four days including the fossil rich Charmouth beach, it's been a very relaxing break.
    This broken shell has pink, brown and cream in it so that's what inspired my colour choice. It's made with eight threads in three colours so the cream was the thread I doubled up on. This gives a constant cream twist with a pink and brown alternating pattern within the twist. Sounds complicated but it really isn't, it's just the way you lay the threads up at the beginning.
    I always take my Kumihimo away with me in the caravan because it's clean, easy and it all fits in a five litre Really Useful box so there are no storage issues. The threads are mostly from bargain shops, charity shops or boot sales, with a few thrown in from old cross stitch projects so there's no great expense involved either. They're not likely to be washed so inexpensive threads are fine and using a beach find as the pendant makes it a real bargain piece of jewellery.
    I can highly recommend braiding as a therapeutic pastime, if you would like to know more please feel free to ask or use Google to see what's out there in blog land. I have a very good book by Helen Deighan called 'Beautiful Braiding Made Easy', and it is easy so go on and give it a try.
   

3D Die Birdcage

     I've been playing around with some dies and this one came out quite well I think. Some of you may remember that I like to see just how many ways a die can be used, after all we all like to get our monies worth don't we?
    This is a die from X-Cut that I was lucky enough to win some months back. I cut it out four times in a pearl gold card. I then cut four narrow long strips from the same card to hold the cut outs together.
    The bottom is also cut from the same card to form a tray type base which has the cut outs glued to the outside. To close the top I have folded each loop in half and glued all four together to form one ring by which you can hang the whole cage up.
    There is ivy cut out and stuck to one corner and leaves and flowers on another corner. Each flower has been coloured with markers and is then held together with a tiny white brad.
   

    Inside the cage is a rosette peacock made with teal coloured pearl card. If you would like to know more about him then please click here to see a previous post. I shall make some more birds with the rosette die now that I have managed to find some slightly different variations of the die.
    This is my offering for J&C Creations tomorrow but I also wish to enter it in Make My Monday's challenge to 'Use Dimension'.

Don't forget, when ever you get a new die have a play with some cheap card to see what you can make with it. If you find something good then please let me know, I would love to see what you've made.

Red Deer

    This weeks Christmas card is inspired by the colour theme from 52 Christmas Card Throwdown, a photo from CraftyHazelnut and Glitter from Holly Jolly.
    I began with some double sided sticky paper and cut out the deer using a Sizzix M&S die, then I stuck it on some gold card, removed the top layer and sprinkled red glitter all over it. The glitter stuck perfectly to the sticky sheet leaving me a crisp gold deer. I then cut out the circle with a Spellbinder die.
    The top of the bauble is the top part of a lantern die from Marianne cut in black card, the branch is also a Marianne die. Both bauble and branch are mounted on foam pads.
    The background is a very pale gold pearl card that has been embossed with a Creative Expressions folder. At each lattice junction I have put a small gold pearl using Cosmic Shimmer PVA glue.
    There is a small gold mount layer under the lattice before being stuck on to a red card blank.

I would like to enter this card in the following challenges:

52 Christmas Card Throwdown - Red and Gold

CraftyHazelnut's Christmas Challenge - Photo Inspiration (deer, circle, red)

CrafyHazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra - Anything Christmas

Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge - Glitter Galore

Haul Out The Memories

    This week sees the launch of our second challenge over at The Male Room. This time we would like to see 'Reflections'. They could be reflections in water or mirrors, or a reflective look back at a fond memory through a scrapbook page. We are a muti craft blog, not just cards, anything as long as it's masculine.
    Thank you to all those who joined us for our first challenge, there were over a hundred of you. It's proving quite hard to choose the top three, winners will be announced next week. We don't have many rules so please may I remind you that we would like you to link up your blog post and not your whole blog, we would hate to have to disqualify anyones hard work.
    As you can see from my DT entry I have chosen to reflect via a scrapbook page. I have always had a passion for lorries, so much so that I went and learnt to drive one myself. This is a reminder of the fun days away at Truckfest with some of my friends.

Sparkling Koi

    Today I have used the a background method from Technique Time Tuesday called 'Smakin Acetate', it's really quick and easy to make a shaded background with this. There is a tutorial on the blog to show you how to get started.
    Before I coloured the background on this card I stamped and embossed in clear. After colouring I used a water brush to lift the colour off the fish. Once dry I then coloured the fish with a Sakura Stardust pen in orange, he has a lovely sparkle but I couldn't get it to show well in the picture, sorry.
    The Chinese Proverb is from the same stamp set by Chocolate Baroque, stamped in dark blue with distressed edges and cut to a square to fit in with the challenge at Here Come The Boys. I have used a metal coin with a small ribbon as my embellishment. This came from my DT buddy Karen, thank you Karen, of Stamping In Pink. We have been trying to revive the oriental style, although I am lagging far behind at the moment.
    I don't know what the word says but I hope it's something nice, it has a nice flowing look to it and I use it a lot. I can't remember which set it came from as I've had it so long. Just a note to let you know that there is a new challenge tomorrow at The Male Room so pop over and join us if you can, remember we are a multi craft challenge so it doesn't have to be a card it could be a scrapbook page or a gift, anything as long as it's masculine.

I would like to enter this card in the following challenges:

Cards for Men - Heavy Metal

Country View Crafts - Quotations 

Here Come The Boys - Only Squares

A Late Twist

     I have only a few hours before the challenge closes at The Technique Twist so here is my entry.
    The challenge is to make a Faux Wax Seal with embossing powder, I have seen this referred to before as Triple Embossing. It's where you use Ultra Thick embossing powder or three layers of fine to make a pool of colour and then stamp into it while its still warm.
    I made the picture using this months challenge at Technique Time Tuesday called Smakin' Acetate. The background colours came out well, but when I stamped my picture I missed a bit in the middle. Not wanting to throw it away I used the Faux Seal over the missing bit and stamped it with a butterfly.

    Some of the previous embossing didn't like being heated up again but it all calmed down in the end, so something came out of an original 'happy accident' after all.
    I mounted the picture at an angle as I'm trying to get away from using straight lines all the time, after all nature is not always uniform.
   

House Of Cards Photo Inspiration......

 .......Dinner Invitation. Well that's what inspired me when I saw this photo.
    I spent some time trying to find the right embossing folder for the background, I knew I had one a bit like the wallpaper somewhere in my box. Then the search began for some CoreDinations card that was almost the right colour, again much rummaging in stash box! I embossed and sanded the card, then cut it to fit a square card blank.
    For the oval I borrowed a Spellbinder set Floral Oval from a friend, thanks Avril, to cut in black.
    The chandelier from Inkadinkado is stamped in black and clear embossed on a slightly shimmery white card and then die cut using a plain oval.

    The cutlery brads are from Woodware, I loved them when I first saw them and have been looking for a reason to use them so this was perfect. The brads have been put on before sticking the background to the card so the backs are hidden.
    I made three small white roses from shimmery white paper and mounted them in the other corner. Finally to finish there are three small clear gems diagonally opposite the cutlery.
   You still have two days left to join us at House Of Cards. We'd love to see your inspired creations.