Leaf It Out

     It's an Autumn theme at The Male Room this challenge, just remember to make your project suitable for a man or boy.
     I have a stamp set in my stash with the most gorgeous leaves in various sizes, I also have a collection of mica powders in beautiful colours so what could be better than to use them together.
     The base card is a chocolate brown pearl card, dark card shows off mica powders so well. The wording is stamped and embossed in CS Bright Gold before adding the leaves, these are all stamped in Versamark and then dusted with a mix of green, gold, bronze and rust coloured mica's. I also stamped a spare small leaf and fussy cut it to mount on foam pads to add a little more interest. The mica panel was dusted to remove excess powder, then lightly covered with hair spray to fix it.
     The image panel is mounted on a thin layer of old gold paper and mounted on a Kraft card decorated with more leaves stamped with Versamark but this time dusted with brown chalk.
     Come and join us at The Male Room with your masculine autumn makes, pop over to the challenge blog and take a look at all the inspiration we have for you.

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

Make My Monday - Autumn Colours

One Stitch At a Time - Leaves

Pink Pocket Card

     This card was made using a selection of products from Creative Expressions Phil Martin range.

      It all started with a sheet of paper from the 8x8 pad Graceful Butterflies, this is a good quality firm double sided paper.
     Fold the paper in half with the pattern on the outside, open and fold in half the other way to get quarters. Cut from the outside to the middle on ONE side as shown, fold the bottom right corner in and the top right corner out as shown, they are not the same so do check before you fold.

      Fold the bottom corner in and fix down, fold the lower half of the square up to meet the top half (the pattern will show now). Turn it over and fix the small corner flap down.
      Now fold the card in half along the crease line. The patterned square will form the backing to your pockets, this will need to be fixed along the bottom edge, the left hand edge of the front patterned triangle will also need to be fixed to the plain layer to form the other pocket.  This should leave you with a double pocket on the front and a single layer flap for the back of your card.
     I would suggest trying this out on a piece of scrap paper first so you don't waste the good one.

      Now you have the card blank made you can begin to decorate it. I have a small gap open in my front pocket accessed from inside the card, perfect for a secret message tag.
     The greeting, which is from a John Lockwood set, has been added to a small die cut from the Madison Square set edged with Distress Ink Spun Sugar.
     Decoration on the outside started with stamping one of Phil martin's Sentiment Borders across the flap that is plain pink using Distress Ink Seedless Preserve. On the top right corner there is a small flower made using Graceful Pink Sparkle Texture Paste through a Doodle Daisy mask.

     The flowers are made using Sue Wilson die Classic Foldover Flowers and strips cut from another sheet of the paper pad. The greenery is die cut with a Couture Creations die and some of the green paper in the same pad.
     The butterflies are stamped with Phil Martin's Butterfly Montage set and Seedless Preserve, then clear embossed and fussy cut.
     The tags are die cut from the paper pad, the edges coloured with Distress inks and flowers made using the paste and stencils again. The greeting is stamped and embossed in Bright Gold.
     Once the tags are dry you can tuck them into the pockets, these are ideal for writing little messages on and could be used as bookmarks later on.

Materials used
Phil Martin Graceful Butterflies & Dragonflies 8x8 pad
PM stamps - Decadent Damask Every day Sentiments
                      DD Sentiment Borders
                      Butterfly Montage Collection
John Lockwood stamp set - Flower Hearts Elements
That Special Touch Mask - Doodle Daisies
CE PM Sparkle Texture Paste - Graceful Pink / Decadent Wine
CE Embossing Powder - Clear / Bright Gold
Distress Ink - Spun Sugar / Seedless Preserve
Sue Wilson Die - Classic Foldover Flowers / Madison Square
Couture Creations Die - Classic Vine

Stubborn Gremlins

     Here's a tree decorations made using Stix2 products and a few extra beads. I have used four snowflake die cut shapes, some of the seed beads and iridescent glitter.
    The large beads and bells are from Sparkle and Flair in Harleston, Norfolk where I was demonstrating on Saturday.

     I still have no connection at home, we are waiting for BT to come and dig a big hole to reach the broken cable.
     When we get back on line I have lots to show you as I've been crafting to stay calm!

     See you all soon I hope!

Technical Gremlins

    We are having some technical issues here, a saga that has been running for well over a week and shows little sign of improvement.  All is not lost, crafting is keeping me sane......well almost, so there will be lots to post when we are up and running again.

Another Star Rises

     This weeks project for Creative Expressions is another star made with John Lockwood's paper collection.

     This is made using two sheets of paper. Each pad has 48 double sided sheets, 12 designs in two colour ways with two sheets of each.
     I chose to use one of the lined patterns which made it very easy to cut out ready for glueing. In my haste to make my star I forgot to take lots of pictures so you can find out how to make this Finnish star here.
     It uses six strips per side and you make two sides which weave together for glueing. This is something that would be good to make with children as it's very easy to cut out, easy to assemble and looks amazing.
     I have used two panels from another page in the paper collection mounted on gold mirri card and stuck on to the middle of the star. There is a thin gold thread at the top of one point so it can be hung up.

Materials used
CE John Lockwood Paper Collection - 12 Days Of Christmas
CE Cosmic Shimmer Dries clear PVA Glue

Stars and Flakes

     My project for Creative Expressions this week is a simple star card, it's made using papers from the John Lockwood 12 Days Of Christmas paper collection.

      These papers are 8x8, 170gsm and double sided, it's great to get a double sided paper that's not too thick to fold neatly.
     I have cut an equilateral triangle from one sheet of paper, each side is 8 inches long.
     The triangle is marked on each side at 2 5/8, 4 and 5 3/8 inches, then scored between these marks to form the fold lines. The fold nearest the point will need to be a 'mountain' fold and the fold nearer the centre will need to be a 'valley' fold.
 

      I have added a hanging thread to the top of the inner triangle before beginning to decorate the star, it can now be fixed and hidden by the inner panel.
     I have used a small snowflake stamp and Cosmic Shimmer Bright Gold embossing powder to add a little sparkle to my star.
     There is an inner white card panel that has been stamped and embossed with a greeting, this is stuck over the thread and gives somewhere to write a message.

      The star folds up to hide your message and will hang quite happily on the tree. To secure the folds you need to overlap the corners tucking one end in and one end out.
     These would be great hung all over your tree with little messages inside, they can be made smaller, just make sure you keep the sides an equal length. Using the basic shape your decoration could be simple, like this one, or much more elaborate covering each section with coloured layers and images.
     There are so many things you can make with this paper stack and with 48 sheets in the collection you can co-ordinate your decorations, cards and gifts.

Materials used
CE John Lockwood Paper Collection - 12 Days Of Christmas
CE Cosmic Shimmer Embossing Powder - Bright Gold

CASE-ing Christmas Goes Monthly

     CASE-ing Christmas has gone monthly, we will still showcase inspiration throughout the month but now you have all month to join in the fun.

      I chose to change my colours when CASEing Steph's card. I love snowflakes so I had lots to choose from in my stash.
     The snowflake die is one of Sue Wilson's new releases, I chopped it about a bit to get just one side of my card covered, but that's the beauty of die's, you can cut out the bits you want or use the whole thing.
     The backing paper is from Chocolate Baroque back in the day when they were known as Elusive Images, it's from a CD Rom called Season's Greetings. I love this disk, it has so many gorgeous patterned papers on it and it still works in my computer!
     The greeting is a friends die so I'm not sure where it comes from but it's a very useful one. All I have done to decorate the card after sticking on the paper and die cuts is add some tiny clear gems to add a little sparkle, along with a blue mat layer. The card is quite thin so standard postage will apply to this 7x5 creation.
     Come and join us at CASE-ing Christmas, we'll help inspire you to create all the cards you need for Christmas.

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

Christmas Cards All Year Round - Snowflakes

12 Months Of Christmas - Anything / optional Snowpeople