Happiness is a man on his Bicycle....

Just squeaked in with this one for The Male Room as I got carried away making a card for a swap challenge, which has taken me most of the day! Lucky I knew what I wanted to do. I have used one of my favourite colour combos, Kraft, red and white, usually reserved for Christmas cards, well, for me anyway. The theme this time is transport. Good one for me, I'm married to a transport modeller, a Dutchman, who is bound to like this card!

I am into using some of my older stamps and Pedal Presents doesn't come out of the box very often. The Happy die cut is from Hello You and the birthday is from Best Dad Ever.

I used my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig to make sure the cake was exactly in the right position.

I hope you like my CAS take on the theme. There is a DT call too, over at the challenge blog and we'd love you to join us, creating masculine projects (not just cards) fortnightly.

A Horse, A Horse....

New challenge at The Male Room this morning and I was quite excited about this one...so much to choose from. You will know, unless you have been hiding in a cave, that it was the 400 year anniversary of Shakespeare's death last weekend. Love his work or not he is still a huge influence in our lives if you are an English speaker as so many of his phrases are in daily use. I wasn't a fan until I started to see his plays, mostly in The Globe in London, a recreated Shakespearian theatre which is an absolute must-see if you are there. Now I try to go as often as possible. They are equally good in his home town of Stratford, which is much closer for me.
So, what to do? I went for a well known line from Richard III, "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"  But, if you look carefully you might see "Out, damned spot! Out, I say!" From McBeth!

I wanted a good background for my galloping horses, and went for brayering. I am still very much an amateur at this technique but I watched a great YouTube clip which helped, the link is 

here 

After brayering the sand and sea/sky using Indigo Ink, Baja Breeze and Hello Honey and Crushed Curry I stamped the horse image in Early Expresso multiple times? The hardest decision was where to place the sentiment. Using a Stamp-A-Ma-Jig meant that I could look at it in several positions, I finally settled on the mid-page. 

My card is tent-fold and is quite big, A5 size. It will be for my Dad. To finish off I used a black mat and foam pads to give the image a lift off the front of the card, it was in danger of being just a little too flat.

I hope you enjoy the Shakespear theme, there really is so much you can do with it!

Red Ties on Kraft

My card for CASColours & Sketches this morning is definitely one for the boys. We have a sketch for you this week and my card is completely different to what I set out to do. Here is the fab sketch for you to work with

I planned to stamp a long, tall image, cut it up into 5 pieces and reassemble with gaps on my card but when I started going through my stamps I came across Best Dad Ever. The 5 little ties in a row reminded me of the five panels so much. Howeve, ties going across the card didn't look so good so I have taken the,Iberia of rotating the sketch.

I've used a Kraft card base and shiny red embossing powder. I stamped directly onto the base (always stressful, believe me this isn't my first attempt, or second...or third) and then added the sentiment stamped onto a mat created from the scraps of my failed stamping. 

A tiny, rhinestone tie pin adds a little bit of interest.. I love the partterns on those ties. I suspect one of my kids will hijack this card in June to give to their dad. Hope you like it too.

Spots and Stripes

Hey! It's holiday time! Hopefully this will mean more crafting time for me and I started well by making a few cards for the up and coming challenges at The Male Room so that I can schedule them while I'm on holiday and not miss a week!
I started with this one

I just love this one! So easy to crate masculine projects using spots and stripes. I changed my mind several times before going with ties...

I chose a stripy DP and covered the card base before cutting the aperture. Then I stamped the ties from Best Dad Ever in Calypso Coral, Mossy Meadow and a berry red and cut them out. I positioned them in the aperture, centrally, the middle one is popped up on foam pads. Using the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig I could position the greeting.

When the card is opened the ties are inside.

...and Crazy Cats

Here's my card for this week's sketch challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches.

 I knew straight away that I wanted to use the cats from You Little Furball to make the circles.

I used my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig to get the positioning of the cats exactly as I wanted them before adding the lower border.

 The colour choice was determined by the self adhesive ribbons which I used to make the horizontal stripes for the sketch. These have been in my stash for ages and ages, so glad I remembered them as they go perfectly. The sentiment is from Best Dad Ever.

For My Dad

Hello! This morning I have a very clean and simple Fathers' Day card, which I have made for my Dad. I used the colours from this week's challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches

If, like me, you don't have these colours just use something close - I used a Matt silver, More Mustard and a generic green to stamp on my card. I also used two of my 'go to' stamp sets, Wetlands and Work Of Art. Do you have favourite stamp sets too? Ones which you love to use over and over again? I've teamed them up with the Hello You thinlets die and Best Ever Dad, to make the sentiment.

I used the sketch from CAS(E) This Sketch

I used the silver and the green stamped and then stamped off to create the four panels. Then I stamped the goose in More Mustard, carefully positioning the image with my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig so that the plumage of the bird would match up.

Finally I added the Happy, cut out of green card stock and stamped part of a sentiment in the silver. 

Adventure Bound Birthday

Back up to speed now with my second card this week, this time for the sketch challenge at CAS Colours & Sketches. I've had a couple of weeks off, but I have seen the challenges and all the fab CAS cards you all have been making. This week we have a great sketch to play with

I recently bought the DP set Adventure Bound, specifically to make cards for men for my other DT challenge blog, The Male a Room, but I thought it would work well with this sketch. Having had a quick look on the internet I took some inspiration from there and....

This is one whole sheet of the DP, isn't it fab? I added the Happy sentiment cut out using the Hello You thinlet die and instead of a banner I,ve used twine, twisted three times. The Bithday part of the sentiment is from Best Dad Ever and is stamped on vellum which I have torn and secured with a small brad. Layered onto Kraft my card is finished.

Two more views.

The second card, made using the sketch and the same DP set follows the sketch a little more closely. I started by stamping and heat embossing the sentiment from Big Day onto a different piece of DP

I made the banner using the set Happy Congratulations and as the twine was still on the table I added a couple of bits at the end to carry the bunting off the edge slightly. After stamping and punching out the lanterns I added a touch of Dazzling Details to add a shimmer effect on them and used foam pads to add dimension.

Cat Walk

At CAS Colours and Sketches this week we have a colour challenge for you and a new hostess for the month of May, Stef- I know she's very excited to be hosting and you are going to love her colours and sketches over the next four weeks.

These three colours also work well for masculine cards and with Fathes' Day coming up next month I thought I would get ahead of the game. The little cat die is perfect for inlaying and so I worked with the colours and the technique to create this...

Cards for this challenge need to be stamped and so I stamped directly onto the card using a sentiment from Best Dad Ever set

You can see on this photo the texture on the cardstock I used. I used a black layer to pop the panel off the white background.

A Nice Pear for Dad

A traditional male challenge at The Male Room this week: Fathers' Day, which is on Sunday, here in the UK in case you've forgotten. Actually I've spent most of the afternoon helping my son create a card for my other half, but I did find time to make this one, using a technique which I wanted to try out and entering a couple of  challenges at the same time.
I was intrigued by the challenge at Cas-ual Fridays- create a card for a male without using Kraft (easy!) and including a ribbon of some kind (which breaks all the rules for man cards having no fussy/frilly bits!). So I just had to try it. This is my card

The stamping is done by printing a background, stamping the image and then overlaying a top piece of card with an aperture cut out over the image stamped again and lining them up. This way there is no overhang, the image edges are crisp. I decided to offset my image this time.

For the ribbon I used a piece of striped DP (which you can see I used inside my card too) and overlaid a piece of Old Olive spotted and scalloped ribbon. The sentiment is from Best Dad Ever.
The second challenge is Make My Monday where they also want cards for males.

The card will be for my father, he lives in the next-door county to us- Worcestershire, and the emblem is a pear so it is quite fitting, green is also his favourite colour

Oak Tree Reflections

Good morning! There is a new challenge at The Male Room this morning. Over there we are looking for your craft projects for the men in your lives and this time the theme is Leaves and Trees.
I reached for an old favourite stamp set, as I'm sure many more of you will too, Lovely As A Tree and created this card

I used the new hardwood background stamp, which I finally got around to ordering, some twine and the tab is a punch. I used the reelection technique for the grand old oak tree, sponging in the sky and 

water. I've added just a touch of dazzling detail to get some reflective quality into the water. Last bit of detail is t he oak leaf, stamped in Gumball Green and fussy cut to add to the frame. Could be a Fathers Day card or a family birthday card,either fits the simple sentiment.

Hurray for Stamp-a-ma-jigs!

Just playing today, and I found one or two challenges to help me. I wanted to try out my new Stamp-a-ma-jig thingy and so stamping was my main focus.  I have used the lovely colour palette from Colour Throwdown , perfect for the masculine card I wanted to make for Less Is More-haven't played over there in a while. Have to say that my Old Olive ink pad is so dried up that I had to use a substitute - I chose River Rock-hope that's OK

I also wanted to use Gorgeous Grunge, I am so mad about this stamp set, love, love , love it! Must admit, I don't often do one layer cards but I am always impressed by them.  looking at the gallery of winners from last week's LIM challenge gave me the idea.  Enough chat, here's my card

As you can see I've used the tie image from Best Dad Ever (the sentiment is from that set too), although I masked off two of the ties, 5 was way too many, and Off The Grid as a background.  One tiny rhinestone tie pin keeps it LIM.  For me technically, I am very pleased with the positioning and masking -it's good to develop new skills.

Travel by Scooter

It's time for a new challenge at The Male Room, a challenge blog for cards for the men and boys in our lives. As always we have a theme for you to experiment with and this week it's

Transport

Any kind or shape of transport, or any idea that the cue word gets you thinking about is fine we love bicycles, motorbikes, trains, cars, planes...you get the idea.

For my card I needed  card for a teenage boy -don't you think those are the most difficult, especially if it' not your teenage boy, but a friend's son, or the friend of your son, anyway, I thought that this might just be acceptable

I used a freebie image from a magazine and stamped it onto card stock four times, once on grey, once on green once on blue and finally on white, then I cut various bits out and paper pieced the Vespa back together. The wheels and seat have glossy accents added to make the shiny effect. The green chevrons are a piece of DP and the tine is there because the sentiment needed balance.  I like the rounded corners on the blue cardstock mat, they add to the retro feel I think. The sentiment is from Best Dad Ever - I like the 'maleness' of the typeset.

I think I'm getting a bit better at making these cards for men now, I certainly need the practice as I live in a house with only one female (Me!) Do have a look at the blog where the rest of the DT have some fantastic cards to look at.
I am going to enter my card in a new-to-me challenge blog called Handmade Harbour where the theme is Men and Boys too and in ABC challenges, where they are celebrating National Children's day with a challenge for cards for kids (hope it includes teenagers!) Happy Crafting!

First class Male

Wow, I am so excited today as a brand new challenge blog gets under way, and I'm on the design team!! It called The Male Room and is for masculine cards only. When Jacqueline, the creator of this new blog, asked me to join I was thrilled, mostly because male cards are something which I find very difficult and I wanted to be pushed out of my comfort zone. A keen and talented DT has been put together and we've had a few chats about possible themes for the blog and they're really great, I can't wait.  My life is always fairly hectic, so the fact that the challenges run fortnightly was also a big plus for me.
Enough of the chatter, you want to see my first card, don't you?

I must admit, until I get more confident I've gone with my old favourite for men's cards, Zoo Review. I really like these zebras, there's something about their monochrome, geometric look which makes me smile. I've used the last of the homemade washi tape in the zebra print design :(  -I really will have to try to locate that Inkadinkadoo stamp and add it to my stash. The sentiment is from Best Dad Ever. I've used black cs for the card base, so I've stamped inside...

  Do have a go at making a card for this challenge, anything goes for our first one, and remember you have two weeks. I can't wait to visit your blog and leave you some love from The Male Room!

Raspberry Ripple Daisies

My final week as hostess at CAS Colours and Sketches, I've loved choosing the sketches and colour combos and writing the posts, but it will be nice to hand it back too! This time of course it's a sketch, this one...

Nice and simple, I had thought that I would use a ribbon for the shape on the right, but you know how it is, things change when you get started and I ended up using some (homemade) washi tape.What I am really pleased with is the colour duo of Raspberry Ripple and Summer Starfruit, that's all I used.

The stamp is from Best Of Flowers and the butterfly is from Butterfly Potpourri.  The sentiment is actually from Best Ever Dad, though I don't think I would give this card to my Dad! I've stamped the flowers on an aquapainted background and then stamped off to get the shadow effect. The washi tape (actually masking tape) was also coloured with these two shades and stamped with the daisies using a Raspberry Ripple Stampwrite marker. If you try this then you need to let the ink dry for quite a while, I actually used my heat gun to speed up the drying process, The little butterfly has two small starfruit coloured gems

Fathers' Day and a New Blog!

This is a card I made for my Dad for Fathers' Day.  I haven't shown it before not because he would see it ( he has no clue about computers let alone blogging!) but because I was waiting for my friend Jacqueline to launch her DT call for a brand new challenge blog.  As soon as she told me her plans I wanted to be on the team, so I hope this card is upto scratch. The blog is called The Male Room and it's a man-card only challenge. Isn't that a brilliant idea?  We are always bemoaning the fact that we don't make enough cards for the boys, now here is a challenge to sort that out. Also, I love the fact that it's going to be a fortnightly challenge so I think I can manage that alongside my other DT commitments. All this talking....I need to show you my card!

I've used a grey pearlised card blank and some DP that reminded me of a shirt.  I stamped the ties from Best Dad Ever in 5 different colours on some more DP and added a tiny coordinating gem 'tie pin' to each one. Finally I stamped the greeting and cut out a tie shape, inking the edge slightly to add definition.
Dad loved it!  It's sitting on his mantelpiece right now.
While I'm here, I'll show you another card made with the same set, this time I made it for my son to give to my husband. Usually I let them loose on my stuff and they make their own cards but he's been doing his exams so I helped him out (the other two did make cards, although it was nearly midnight on Saturday when we finished!)

For this one I used the chalkboard technique, which is the featured technique this month over at Technique Tuesday Time.  I found another DP that reminded me of a shirt, made the chalkboard, using white ink to stamp and then sponging more over the top for that rubbed-out look.
Why not have try out for the DT too, it would be great working with you!

Tumbling Blossoms

A second post from me on a Saturday! Only because, as I hinted before, I was working on an idea for the CAS Flowers challenge at Make My Monday. I made my first card and had stamped and cut out a whole load of blooms from Stipples Blossoms, only to end up just using three.  Well, I couldn't throw all those others away could I?  So, I made this card with the 'rejects'

It reminds me a bit of an Art Deco style, don't know why. I embossed some white card with a Swiss Dots folder, two-step stamped some leaves in Pool Party (again - loving this shade of green at the moment) and popped up the blooms on dimensionals.  The sentiment is stamped in Basic Grey and is from the set Best Dad Ever (don't think this card will be heading my Dad's way!). I think it's more CAS than my first entry and I like the way the flowers are tumbling off the front. Hope any Dads out there have a great Fathers' Day tomorrow!