Tag Archives: The Male Room

Origami Leaf

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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.
Origami Leaf

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

Symmetry

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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

Falling Leaves

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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

Space or Science

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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

 

 

Re-Cycle Challenge

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This week at The Male Room, the challenge is to Re-Cycle something on your project.  That could be some bits and pieces of your stash that you might normally throw out, or something completely different.

I had a delivery recently that came in a cardboard box, so instead of throwing out the box, I tore some of the box off and have used it on my card.

I seem to be using this windmill image quite a lot at present, must be stuck in a groove!  Still, it is a great image for masculine cards.  I have layered some of my Kaszazz papers as a base.  The piece of the cardboard box was then stripped a little so that just those corrugated layers remain, and then I put the windmill over the top.
I hope you will just us at The Male Room and share your ideas.
Happy stamping!
Chris

Winter Olympics

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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, Skippy……

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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

Vintage

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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

New Beginnings

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Happy New Year to each and every one of you. Thank you for continuing to follow my blog posts (despite them being few and far between at present), and I hope 2018 is an awesome year for you.

It’s still holidays here in Australia, it’s summer, it’s hot, and it’s when our children have a long break from school. So heaps of beach time!!

As a result, I am just a little late with this post for The Male Room‘s current challenge. I thought I had everything organised before Christmas but somehow I managed to miss this one.

New Beginnings. I’m not into New Years Resolutions, nevertheless, this time of year always feels like time for regenerating, re-organising and just starting afresh. And my beautiful son celebrates his birthday at this time too. I can’t believe he is 12 already!!

I made him a different birthday card this year, one that I think resonates with him, and what we plan for the coming year.


I have mainly used retired bits and pieces that I’ve put together in his favourite colours, green, and the wood textures and colours.  Oh and I can’t forget that gorgeous black metal bird from my Kaszazz stash. Love it!!

Happy Stamping!

Chris

xx

Merry Christmas from The Male Room

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Of course we had to have a Christmas challenge at The Male Room, although there are other options for your project this time, too, such as Winter Wishes or a different December Celebration.  

I chose a Christmas card though, since it’s the middle of summer here in Australia, and our main celebration is Christmas, so I have plenty of people I can give a Christmas card to.


I’ve kept this one fairly simple, using a printed music patterned paper for the background, and some gold stars over the black strip of cardstock.  I think this design would work well with all sorts of different colours and background papers.  I might have a play with some more like this one!
We love to see your creations, so please share your masculine Christmas, winter or December celebration projects with us at The Male Room.
Happy Stamping!
Chris