The Male Room Challenge: Halloween

Have you noticed how many folks are into Halloween these days? People go all out with costumes, decorating their houses. What a great holiday for creativity. It rates up there with Christmas and Valentine's Day.

This week at The Male Room we are challenging you with a Halloween theme. Coffins of fun huh?!!?
 

Distress inks are perfect for Halloween. You can make such spooky color combos with them. I die cut a circle and sponged it with mustard seed, wild honey, crushed grapes, and chipped sapphire. Splattered a bit of water and I had and awesome background for my spooky scene.

Be afraid, be very afraid!

AAA Cards challenges matches up with the Male Room's this week- Halloween- CAS so I am playing along there also.

 

I hope you join us at the Male Room and play along with this spooky theme!

Thanks bunches

I have a million reasons to be thankful a bunch of them!! Today is is the most glorious spring day thus far this year. I am looking out my studio window and the daffodils are blooming their hearts out! I am done school till June and I have a free day to stamp. What could be better.

I needed a thank you card. For some reason I have a million birthday cards stock piled, not so many thank yous. Since I had to make a card, I decided to check into some challenges to give me inspiration. 

Much to my surprise ShowCASe Your Style was looking for thank you cards! Perfect!

Happy Little Stampers,  a new to me challenge site was looking for the use of stencils in your project. I used a very old and the first stencil I ever purchased, way back when.... even before they were trending.

Curtain Call had a photo inspiration using a bouquet of flowers. 

And AAA cards had the word "springtime" as your inspiration.

I got very busy and created this fun tag thank you card. I die cut the tag and sponged inspiration colors through the stencil. To create a more dramatic effect I outlined the stenciled image with a sharpie. This is one of my favorite tricks to use with stencils.

Check out all of these great challenges and I am sure your creative juices will begin to flow!

Clean and Simple Card Class 4- homework

I haven't posted or created much for that matter in the last few weeks. My class this semester is rather trying and is zapping all the creative energy I have. 

But today, I had that extremely rare event in the life of a nurse, a SNOW DAY!!!! Because of the storm we were expected to get, our medical director decided to close our endoscopy unit! Therefore this nurse gets to have some fun and play!!

I just finished catching up on the start of the Clean and Simple Card Class 4. Kristina Werner did a very cool video on "interrupted die cutting". She used a scallop die. I went for a heart rhythm die, that I have never used. With all the stamps I have, do you think I could find a"you make my heart beat" noooooo So I had to make do with "you make my heart flutter". For you medical people perhaps you can see how I could use this in a pinch- aflutter. Get it?!!?

If you haven't taken any of the online card classes, they are awesome. I always learn something new.

Check them out.

Pia- thanks for the nice comment, because you suggested, I am entering my card at the ombre challenge at Inkspiration.

Kick Start and Hallmark Inspiration

I received a sympathy card when my kitty Winkie died. The person who gave it to me was embarrassed by the card. It just didn't say what she felt. I on the other hand loved it and knew I would be copying the design of it.

Here is the card I received.

I loved the shadow of the tree behind the main panel. I had gotten a tree mask from Crafter's Workshop at some point and hadn't used it yet. I think I was saving it for Halloween. I knew the tree template would be perfect for my version.

I started with some white paper and sprayed Mr. Huey's clay spray over the card. I stamped some blotches with pumice stone distress ink. I added my panel of trees colored with distress markers and the sayings. While it was rather similar to the first, it was my jumping off point. Like Jennifer Maguire during the Kick Start class, she often makes several cards when the inspiration is happening.

Here are two more cards made using the same template but different backgrounds. 

I loved how the white spray on the black card stock made it look the mikyway. The last card I used the white spray on kraft paper.

Three different cards from the one inspiration.

Have a great weekend!

Tag your it, catch up!

I have been taking the Kick Start online card class with Jennifer Maguire and Kristine Warner. The class teaches us how to "kick start" our creativity. My tag your it challenge with my buddy Jules is one of the best ways to kick start my creativity.

If you have been following my blog, you all know about my "tag your it" challenge with my friend Jules. Check out this blog entry for the details if you have no idea what I am talkin' about.

Well, I have gotten way behind what with work and my statistics class. Finally some time to respond to 2 of Jules cards. "hey there" is clean and simple card that took me 4 days to complete. I had the paper strips and the "hey there" on the base card and then didn't know where to go. I finally went through all my stamps and pulled out this Hero Arts stamp that I actually have never used! I fit great on the top of the blue strip. Add "let's party" and the card was complete. This card was made based on this card I received from Jules. 

The next card was a bit more difficult to get a take on. Here is my interpretation.

Here is Jule's card that it was based on. Can you find my inspiration from her card? It is a bit of a stretch.

If you click on the photo's, you can see Jules embossed the ice cream cones. So that was my jumping off point- embossing, something I rarely do these days.

Hope you enjoy the latest "tag your it" cards. I would love to see your inspiration cards from any of the cards presented here.