Just the one card today, featuring the very cute Pretty Kitty Stamp set, which is retiring tomorrow.
I have watercoloured around Kitty, leaving her white, and coloured the flowers using either Stampin’ Blends or Stampin’ Markers, and used the Gingham Gala papers (also retiring tomorrow) from the Occasions Catalogue.
Inspiration for this card came from the current sketch challenge at Freshly Made Sketches.
Happy Sunday stamping!
Chris
Only a few days to go until the new Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalogue goes live, with all the new goodies. And believe me, there are lots of gorgeous goodies in this one!
In the meantime, I am going to be sharing some cards using a few of the retiring ones, and today I enjoyed some carfty time making these cards with the Sheet Music background stamp.
As a musician, I love this stamp, it is real music, not just random notes, and it is so gorgeous for cards and scrapbook layouts, so I am personally sad to see this one retiring.
It will be one that stays in my personal stash though.
Here are the individual cards….
And then I decided to go with some colour, and chose my favourite, Highland Heather.
The gorgeous butterfly is fussy cut from some retired Designer Series Papers, but they are too special to give away, so I am still using them.
I am going to share my cards to some card Challenges:
Global Design Project – Birds, Bees and Butterflies
Stampin’ Up! Only Challenges – Masculine Project
CAS Colours and Sketches – Sketch Challenge with a focus on the sentiment
Fusion Card Challenge – Sketch Challenge
TGIF Challenges – Make a Set of Cards
I hope you are having a crafty weekend.
Happy Stamping!
Chris
Have you seen the May 2019 Paper Pumpkin kit, called Hugs From Shelli?
We don’t normally get the Paper Pumpkin kits in Australia, so this was extra special for us, and I have been enjoying making some different cards using the various elements that are in the kit.
The kit was beautifully packaged, with some tissue paper wrapped around everything. Tissue paper that was coloured to match the kit.
I had to use it, it’s just too gorgeous to throw out.
It would be lovely for gift wrapping, of course, but I love the challenge of finding a way to use it on my cards.
So, I have taken a piece of the tissue paper, big enough so that it can be wrapped around to the back of the first layer of your card, in this case, my layer was 9.5 x 13.8 cm, and the tissue paper about 3 cm bigger on both sides.
I have then stamped all over the tissue paper using the flower stamp from the kit. Since I don’t own a Petal Pink ink pad (yet!), I have stamped the image using Blushing Bride ink, and stamped randomly all over the tissue paper.
Then I have crumpled up the tissue paper (once the ink was dry!) and then flattened it out again. This gives the tissue paper some lovely texture and some added interest.
I have popped a tiny bit of glue around the outside edge of the Whisper White cardstock which I used for this first layer, and then laid the tissue paper over the white, using the glue to keep it nice and straight and flat.
Then I turned the whole layer over, and using some Tear and Tape, pulled the edges of the tissue paper over to the back of the cardstock and stuck it down on the back.
Then I have simply layered it onto some Crumb Cake, and then Soft Suede cardstock, and added the stamping and embellishments as you can see, from the kit.
Such pretty colours, and a totally gorgeous kit to enjoy some creative time with.
I’m going to add this one in for the current Global Design Project sketch challenge, #GDP190.
Send me a message if you live in Australia and would like to get your hands on one of these Hugs From Shelli Paper Pumpkin kits, I believe there are still some available.
Happy stamping!
Chris
I am having so much fun playing with embossing folders, and creating a lot of different textures and interest on my cards. I like texture, especially on the masculine cards.
This card uses a combination of Pinewood Planks embossing folder, and Woodland, two of my all time favourites. And I am very happy to be able to tell you that both of them are carrying over to the new catalogue.
I thought it would be fun to play along with the current challenge at The Male Room, which is “Anything Goes” with an optional twist of using Origami. So I made an origami leaf using some Vellum to go with the “wood” theme of my card.
It’s just a very simple folded triangle, very easy to do. I’m not sure that I am entirely happy with it, I wondered if it would be better with two leaves, but didn’t want them to over power the rest of the card, so left it just like that.
Happy stamping!
Chris
This fortnight at The Male Room, your challenge is to make something Symmetrical.
I have used a cool Kaszazz stamp for this one…..
it comes from the set called Hand Drawn Borders, and I have used the awesome Precision Press to line my stamps up, and so it ended up being a really quick and easy card to make.
Come on over to The Male Room, we would love to see your symmetrical projects.
Happy Stamping!
Chris
xx
It has been a long two weeks since my previous post, and one that has certainly been challenging and a little overwhelming.
Firstly, however, I will mention this week’s challenge at The Male Room.
This one would normally excite me a lot, and I would have had so much fun with it, but with everything else going on, I have had very little time to craft. I love playing with watercolour techniques!!
So here is my very quick card…….
I started off with some watercolour paper which I spritzed with water. Then I collected a couple of leaves from the garden – it is Autumn here in Australia and the leaves are starting to fall from the trees.
Then I used some Distress Oxide inks, in Fossilized Amber, Spiced Marmalade and Fired Brick, and splodged (technical term) some ink straight from the ink pad onto a craft mat, and then spritzed it with water. I then took my leaf and used it as a stamp, collected some random colour onto the leaf and pressed it onto the paper. I did this three times, allowing it to dry in between. Then I outlined the shape of the leaves using a Black Dylusions Paint Pen.
Once I had completed my leaf “stamping”, I couldn’t decide whether it looked more like leaves, or like fire. Which brings me to the reason for my challenging and overwhelming couple of weeks.
We live in a beautiful part of Australia, but as with most of Australia, bushfires are always a threat. Ten days ago, a bushfire started not far from where we live. Fortunately for us, the incredibly strong winds pushed the fire in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, that direction was straight towards our favourite beachside town, one we spend a lot of time in, which is only 15 minutes drive away. 70 homes in Tathra were destroyed, along with so much more.
We are feeling incredibly grateful that we still have our home and that no lives were lost in the fires. Still, we are small and close-knit community and the devastation is heartbreaking. The pictures don’t really show how much devastation there is.
Our favourite beach is still just as good though, we spent the day there yesterday. It was amazing to see all along the shore line, burnt, black leaves off the eucalyptus trees. They must have been blown out during the fire storm and now the ocean is washing them back up onto the beach.
It’s going to be a long and difficult clean up and recovery.
I have made my card this week a “Thank you” card, in honour of the brave firefighters who saved so many houses and lives and fought the bushfires for days on end in extreme heat and wind.
That’s all from me for today. I will try to get more creative this week and share some more projects with you. In the meantime,
Happy stamping,
Chris
xx
The challenge for the next fortnight at The Male Room is Space or Science.
I tried to come up with something scientific but I’m afraid my tired and unwell brain wouldn’t play, so I ended up going simply with some stars. Can’t go wrong with stars!
My card features some lovely patterned paper in great masculine colours, which I picked up at some random craft store at some time.
I have punched some smaller stars out of the paper, showing the reverse side, and fussy cut one of the large stars and layered it over the same star, to highlight the sentiment. Add some sponging around most of the edges and that’s pretty much it. A simple and easy to make card.
We would love to see your Space or Science projects, so please share them with us at The Male Room.
Happy Stamping!
Chris
Have you been watching the Winter Olympics?
We have watched as much of it as we can, and my 12 year old is loving the snowboarding and skiing. I think I’m glad it’s only on every four years though, our television is not usually on for so much of the day, if at all. Sometimes it doesn’t get turned on for weeks on end!
The challenge this fortnight at The Male Room is, not surprisingly, Sport/Winter Olympics.
Heaps of options there for sporty masculine projects.
I have created a Box Card this week for my project. I enjoy making something different sometimes, and these are quite easy to make, but very effective.
I have made my own background for this card, using Glossy white cardstock, and then with my favourite Distress Oxide Inks I have created this colourful background. The colours of ink I used are Peeled Paint, Cracked Pistachio, Vintage Photo and Faded Jeans. (Such cool names for the gorgeous colours!).Then I have used a pipette to add some splotches, and stamped directly onto the background using some words and phrases from the Kaszazz Journal Messages stamp set, and Spring Moments stamp set. The kind of mesh look comes from the background stamp called Graffiti Mesh (awesome stamp!), and then the skiers and snowboarders are from the Kaszazz set called Silhouette Sports.
Here are some closer shots of the card:
and while I was at it I made a bookmark for my son.
I hope you will join us with your sporty projects at The Male Room.
Happy stamping!
Chris
Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo…….
Lets just say I was very, very young when Skippy the Bush Kangaroo was being aired. It has been re-run a lot of times over the years though, and became an iconic Australian classic television series that was popular worldwide. The adventures of a boy and a kangaroo in the Australian bush. You can still see some of the episodes on youtube if you want to have a look.
And the reason for my trip down memory lane, the latest challenge at The Male Room, is to take some inspiration from Television.
We don’t watch much television, apart from some sport, mainly cricket, and of course the olympics when they are on. We are looking forward to the Winter Olympics which starts in just a few days time. However, when I started looking through my stamps for some ideas for this challenge, as soon as I saw the kangaroo stamp the song from Skippy came into my head, and there was my inspiration!
I’ve kept my card nice and simple, wanting to feature Skippy and using some of the gorgeous papers from the Kaszazz On The Surface, and Australian collections. And the kangaroo stamp, also from Kaszazz, from the Australian Animals set, which I have stamped straight onto the patterned paper with Distress Oxide ink and then coloured using pencils.
Happy stamping!
Chris
A masculine Vintage project is our next challenge at The Male Room.
and I do so love having a play with the Vintage style. Heaps of fun!!
My card has heaps of sponging to give it that “old” look, and I have used some of my favourite Kaszazz stamps, the lighthouse from the Coastal Un-cut set, and Mini Messages – Happy Birthday set. I’v also used Timeless Textures stamp set from Stampin’ Up! for the background splodges and texture.
We love to see your projects, so please share them with us at The Male Room.
Happy stamping!
Chris
xx
Dot Dot Stamping Designs 