The Male Room Challenge #193 - Anything Goes

Good morning, 

Welcome to the last challenge from The Male Room for 2024...and to see the year out we have an 'Anything Goes' theme.

Rather than make a Christmas card, I decided to try and increase my masculine birthday card stash which is running a little low. 

Here I have used Stampin Up! Foxy Friends stamp set with matching punch. 

Will you have time to create us a card and join in the fun or is the Christmas period too busy for crafting? What will you create for the 'anything goes' theme? Join in over at The Male Room blog. 

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 

Much love

Steph x

The Male Room Challenge #189 - Mixed Media

Good morning all, 

Welcome to this month's challenge from The Male Room. Challenge #189 has the theme of Mixed Media.

Mixed media is not something I do a lot of but I really enjoyed making these cards. I started with one sheet of A4 cut into four pieces and taping them along the edges with low tack tape.

I used Hickory Smoke, Broken China and Speckled Egg distress oxide inks to 'smoosh' the backgrounds. I found a tip online to use acetate as there is more movement in it and it worked a treat. I then used texture paste through the Uniko Raindrops stencil and added some colour over the top using my fingertip. I then randomly, partially stamped Stampin Up! Dictionary around the panels. I die cut the bicycles and clocks from white card and inked them with the same distress oxides. I then pressed parts of the die cuts into Versamark ink and added Speckled Egg Distress glaze. Finally I stamped multiple sentiments from Uniko Simply Said Blocks and Simply Said Blocks III stamp sets and covered them in Glossy Accents. 

So now it's your turn to amaze us with your mixed media creations. Join in the fun over on The Male Room blog and check out the fantastic creativity of the rest of the Design Team too.

Much love

Steph x

The Male Room Challenge #180 - Feathers

Good morning all, 

Welcome to this month's challenge at The Male Room where we are looking for your masculine cards featuring Feathers.

I have some lovely feather stamps which I decided to stamp in green, blue and orange before fussy cutting. To add a masculine feel to the card I stamped a wood effect background in the same colours and used some rope / twine instead of ribbon across the bottom of the card front. 

If you wish to join in the fun you can do so at The Male Room Challenge #180 and also check out the other Design Team members fantastic makes at the same time. 

Much love

Steph x

The Male Room Challenge #179 - Get Well Soon

Welcome! 

This month at The Male Room challenge we are looking for your masculine Get Well Soon cards. 

I went for the classic get well fruit bowl! This stamp set is super fun and is from Funky Fossil. 

I used alcohol markers to colour each fruit in before fussy cutting and arranging onto the card front. 

What theme will you go with for your Get Well card, or will you choose to do a pattern rather than a theme? CAS or lots of layering? Anything is acceptable as long as it meets the theme and is masculine. Check out the rest of the Design Team’s makes over on The Male Room blog for even more inspiration.

Much love

Steph x

Papercraft Challenges #94 - Things With Wings

Good morning all, 

Today we are up with Papercraft Challenges monthly challenge #94 and the theme is 'Things with Wings'. Lots of 'things' could be used here and not just birds or insects but what about planes too?!

My choice of 'things' were butterflies and here I have used Funky Fossil Geo Bugs stamp set which I have coloured, fussy cut and adhered to a background made using Stampin Up! Dictionary stamp. 

This month's challenge is sponsored by Little Crafts and the winner this month with receive a surprise prize!

We look forward to seeing your creations over at the Papercraft Challenges blog where you can also check out the fabulous makes by the rest of the Design Team. 

Much love

Steph x

The Male Room Challenge #154

Morning all

Welcome to a new challenge from The Male Room. Challenge #154 has the theme ‘Natures Bounty’.

I struggled a bit with this theme. I think I was overthinking it but I just couldn’t get my head around what it meant! In the end I went with something produced by nature...honey!
 

This is a gift card holder where the outer sleeve is the beehive and the gift card holder is the honeycomb that lifts out.

I used Uniko stamp set Bee Happy which I’ve been struggling to get inspiration for but I think it was perfect for this project! The bees on the yellow card were stamped, heat embossed and masked before I stamped and heat embossed the honeycomb. I know the hexagons don’t line up perfectly but it wasn’t that easy to do!! I then coloured the bee wings with a white gel pen.

The sleeve was created from cream card before I added the wood effect panels. The wood effect was stamped on using Stampin Up! Hardwood stamp and Momento ink in Toffee Crunch. The bees on this layer are heat embossed onto yellow card and fussy cut before adhering the body only and lifting the wings for dimension. 

I’d love to see how you interpret the theme so I do hope you’ll join in the challenge fun! Pop over to The Male Room blog and check out the rest of the Design Team’s terrific creations as well as our Guest Designer for the month.

Thanks for stopping by.

Steph x

Color My Heart Color Dare Challenge #444

 Hi everyone 

Welcome back for another Color My Heart Color Dare Challenge #444. Today we have another Tic, Tac, Toe board for you to choose your colours either from a row, a column or diagonal but feel free to add the other colours from the board and the free colours as listed also. No additional colours are allowed.

We reference Close To My Heart colour names but any brand can be used as long as it’s a very close match.

I was very excited to see the rose gold on this board and knew straight away I was going to use it but the only rose gold thing I currently own is some Wow! Fab Foil which I’m still trying to get to grips with. It looks much easier on online demonstrations than it actually is!

I decided to use the rose gold to imitate a marble effect background.

First I took Peach and Ballerina coloured inks and blended them randomly onto white card. Then I made trails of glue and left it to go tacky before laying down the Fab Foil. 

Once I was happy with my background I die cut the Altenew Burlap Texture die from Mink card and laid this on the bottom right. 

I stamped the Uniko Beautiful Blooms III in Peach, Ballerina and Sangria coloured ink and Blue Belle and Glacier for the stems and leaves. I actually used Lawn Fawn inks in the following colours to match the TTT board: Apricot, Ballet Slippers, Cranberry, Forget-Me-Not and Mermaid. I fussy cut the flowers and arranged them over the Burlap die cut. 

I decided to use an off cut of the marble effect background for my sentiment (Stampin Up! Delightful Dozen) which I stamped in Versamark ink and then added Wow! Bonding powder. Whilst still hot I laid over more foil and burnished with a bone folder, lifting off the foil when cooled. I used a scallop edge die to cut a frame from Mink card and adhered both to the top left of the card.

I do wish that you head over to the blog to see the rest of the Design Team’s fantastic projects. It’s really great to see how different all our styles are and you get a very good spread of inspiration. 

Much love

Steph x

First card of 2021!

Good evening all

Happy New Year! And welcome to Lockdown 3.0 in the UK. This has made very little difference in this household as we didn’t send the children back to school and have been homeschooling since October half term...pass me the gin/wine/anything alcoholic to get me through!! 

I left Daddy in charge of the schoolwork this afternoon and I snook off to the craft room to make this card.

I was inspired by the sketch over at CAS(E) this Sketch and I’m also entering it into AAA Birthday challenge #21 as their requirement is a stencil background. 

There was lots of masking going on with the background in order to achieve the diagonals. I used the Cloudy Days stencil from Clearly Besotted for the background and Distress Oxides in Blueprint Sketch, Broken China and Peacock Feathers. The umbrellas are also from CB stamp set April Showers and I added the two larger ones with foam pads. Sticking with CB for the sentiment I used the Full of Sentiment set and cut out using Stampin Up! Classic Label punch. 

I’m also messing around with new background styles for my photos so you might see a few different things popping up as I try and settle on one I’m happy with. This is pretty much an annual itch I get and change the style each January! 

Thanks for visiting today,

Steph x

Perfect For Masculine Makes

 Morning all

It was a real struggle to push myself out of bed and go for a run this morning but as I haven’t been for one since last Monday I thought I’d better make the effort! I also find post run a good time to update my blog, providing I’m quick enough to do it before the children wake up.

Today I’m sharing another masculine make for which I have used Uniko Explosion! stamp set. I really do find this the perfect stamp set for making masculine cards (and it’s also good for female grunge style cards). I like the retro ‘batman and robin’ comic strip feel you can achieve with it too.

So here I’ve embossed a square of white stamping card with Stampin Up! Sizzix Brick Wall embossing folder. I have inked Squeezed Lemonade and Blueprint Sketch Distress Oxides through Creative Expressions Mini Splattered stencil onto the brick panel. The red ‘splatter’ is a die cut using Sizzix Thinlits Scribble & Splat die set which I have simply mat onto the panel. I stamped the yellow explosion and sentiments from the Uniko set using the same Distress Oxides and fussy cut them before adding with foam pads and matting on the sentiments. I then layered the panel onto red and blue card sticking with my primary colours for impact. The blue card is actually white card inked with Blueprint Sketch Distress Oxide so that it matches exactly. 

As The Male Room are celebrating their 7th birthday I’m entering this card and wishing them many happy returns (again!). 

Well I didn’t make it the whole way through the post before the children woke up so I’d better go and make their breakfast!

See you again soon!

Steph x