Love for Reading

                                   The Male Room Challenge #132 - At my Grandfather's House

Hello friends and welcome to another challenge at The Male Room. 

For this fortnight, we are focusing that could inspire you by something you could do or see at your grandfather's house. The story behind my card is this. I have always been inspired by the huge selection of books as well as my grandfather's love for reading. He was also a huge fan of reading newspaper, Time magazines, political features and current affairs. He was an eloquent speaker who loved sharing what he read to others.

For my card, I used most of my images using Mama Elephant Book Worm. I love the images in this set, so adorable. I decided to hand draw a few things like the comfy chair, side table, rug, and floor. The lamp is from Ellen Hutson Leading Ladies Book worm.  I decided to add lift the flap feature on my card as I loved these kinds of books when I was a child till now. I also hid the sentiment "When you read you never stop learning" from Mama Elephant Good Reads.  Then, I used my bone folder to  score vertical lines to add texture to the wall. I have coloured my images with Arteza real brush markers and Prismacolor pencils. Here is my card with the flaps open.

Thank you for stopping by and hope you join us for this challenge.

Happy crafting and have a great day. Be safe and stay positive.

x Clarissa

Sketched flowers

Hello friends, here is a card I have coloured with my prismacolour pencils using Simon Says Stamp Sketched flowers. I used Canson Mi Teintes paper in black where there is a bit of tooth to grip the pigment from the pencil. Here is my finished card.

First, I hear embossed the stamped image in hero arts silver. Then I layed out my dark colours first before the light ones to blend it out. I also used a blending pencil to blend well, then added my dark colour again to add vibrancy and depth.

Thanks to my friend, Chick, for lending me this stamp. I love colouring it. Hope you enjoy this card. 

I am entering this card for the following challeneges:

Timeout challenges

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge 

AAA Birthday Card Challenges - game 11 Flowers

Crafty Creations Challenge - March - Anything Goes #407

Kathy Racoosin's Day 6 #thedailymarker30day challenge

Thanks for stopping by. 

x Clarissa

Basketball Star

The Male Room Challenge #131 - Team Colours

Hello friends and welcome to another challenge at The Male Room. We are so excited to welcome Betty as guest designer for this challenge. I am a personal fan of her work so pls check out her amazing card as well as the other gorgeous cards by the team. 

This fortnight, we are focusing on team colours. This could mean your favourite sport team's, country's or old school's colours, and I chose my favourite team. As I come from the Philippines originally, basketball is a national sport, and when I was growing up, my favourite team, San Miguel, named after a famous beer brand. It's colours were red, yellow and black. That's where I based my colours. It was hard finding a basketball stamp, so I looked for a basketball svg file, and I found my basketball player silhouette and 'PLAY' font here. The basketball hoop and ball svg can be found here.  It's a good thing that I have a scan n cut, so I learned to cut svg files for the first time. Yaay!

Do you like the sentiment "Practice hard, train hard, work hard and ---- harder" that I used? It was just perfect. It is the same svg file that I formatted to jpeg, printed on cardstock, as I didn't have stamp phrases as these.

Distress inks for the background: fired brick, spiced marmalade, and wild honey.

Thanks for stopping by and hope you join us for this challenge.

xo Clarissa

Breakfast at Tiffany's - Clarissa

There's a new exciting challenge at Lawnfawnatics #72 - Inspired by a book, movie or song.  I am glad that they are bringing it back as I wasn't able to participate before. Here is what I came up with.

For my card, I decided to use a longline card to fit in a few LF stamps to create my scene. First I inked up stamps from Happy Village and Village Shops.  and coloured my images with copic markers. Then, I used the girl from Bicycle built for you and edited her hair, added some accessories to make her look like Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's. I love this movie. I added the shades from On the Beach, and drew a pearl necklace around Holly's neck. During the opening trailer, Holly is seen walking towards the shops, looking through the glass window at Tiffanys while munching bread and drinking from a cup. So I decided to add the bread and cup on her basket as she bikes herself to New York shops.

For my street scene, I was inspired by Amy Young, as she makes the most amazing scenic cards. To finish off, I stamped and heat embossed the sentiment "enjoy the little things" from Village shops.

Thanks for stopping by and hope you have a blessed day

xo Clarissa

Life Happens

Hello friends, I am back with another card featuring the beautiful digital stamp, Life Happens by Graciellie Designs. I have a few of her images as her illustrations are gorgeous. Here is my finished card.

I used colours inspired by the current challenge at

CAS on FRIDAY - Color Challenge #174

I coloured my image with the closest colors from my copic markers

Little leaves (YG13, YG17), big leaves (BG32, BG10), first flower (BG18, BG15, BG11), second flower (Y08, Y15, YR21) shadows (W5, W3) background stippling (BG32, BG11, BG10)

I am also entering this into  Day 3 of Kathy's 30 Day Coloring Challenge

#thedailymarker30day

SimonSaysStamp Wednesday Challenge- Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by. I really appreciate your comments and it makes my day.

xo Clarissa

Pop-up Butterflies

Hello friends, I am excited to be sharing with you my card featuring bring it back Lawn Fawn dies, mini pop-up butterflies and spring sprig. My bring it back item is flower confetti attached to the spring sprig. Other bring it back items also used Gotta have gingham paper pack lavender as my background panel. Here is my finished card.

I started off by ink swooshing my white panel using ripe persimmon, tattered rose, picked raspberry distress inks as well as Catherine Pooler sweet sixteen, blueprint sketch and shaded lilac distress oxides. I worked by layer until I achieved the shade that I wanted for the background. Next, I arranged the pop-up butterflies onto my panel and diecut them. Next, as I had previously been playing with alcohol inks (intrigue alcohol pearl, pinata rich gold, copic BV02 and B32), I used this alcol inked panel to diecut the other butterflies to layer them on top. Then, I added the sprig diecuts which were coloured with shaded lilac oxide ink. Lastly, I heat embossed in white the sentiment "wishing you a beautiful day" from Lawn fawn bicycle built for you stamp set.

This card is for Lawnfawnatics Challenge #71 - Bring it Back

Creative fingers challenge Blog -  #180 anything goes

I enjoyed this challenge as it made me use lots of items from my craft stash.

Hope this card puts a smile on your face. Have a great day.

xo Clarissa

Using alcohol ink die-cuts

Hello friends, I have been playing and experimenting with my alcohol inks that I thought it might be fun to make them into cards. This is my first card:

To make this card, I started off by lightly inking up and adding splashes on a 110 pd Neenah Solar white cardstock using Lawn Fawn butter ink and Stamping Up Certainly Celery

Next, I diecut my vellum using MFT stitched dome die-namics. Then I used from my old supplies, Tim Holtz Fall Foliage dies to cut out my images from the alcohol inked panel I made using splendor, sublime and alchemy alcohol inks. Using Sunny Studios Elegant leaves sentiments, I heat embossed the words "Grateful for your Kindness" in Hero Arts Copper EP. Then, I arranged my diecuts, and added some kaisercraft gems and twine.

I am entering this card into the following challenges:

CAS Game #159 - One Corner + optional twist Love Those Older Supplies. -Tim Holtz Fall Foliage

Timeout Challenges #155 - inspired by words

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Crafting.

xo Clarissa

Happy Trails

The Male Room Challenge #130 - Use Embossing

Hello crafty friends. Welcome to another challenge at The Male Room. Before we get excited, we are also very happy to welcome Angie as our guest designer for this challenge. Pls check out her amazing card as well as the rest of TMR design team's inspiring creations.

This fortnight, we are focusing on embossing of any kind: dry embossing, heat embossing,  use of embossing paste, wet paper embossing. For my card today, I used dry embossing technique with an embossing folder from Cuttlebug (spots and dots). I must admit that this is a card making technique that I seldom do and yet it is quite basic. I decided to emboss three colours of cardstock from my stash. Then using the MFT collage cover up die-namics, I cut out a white card base. Then using the same die, cut out the squares from the colours of embossed cardstock and adhered each colour onto a square.

For my image, I used the Lawn fawn happy trails. Coloured these with copic markers and fussy cut. The colours I used were close to my coloured squares so that the colours all matched. Adhered my images onto the panel with foam squares. To finish off, I stamped "happy trails" for my outside sentiment and added a birthday greeting inside my card. 

I am also entering my card into Allsorts challenge - dies and or punches

A place to start - masculine card

Thank you for stopping by and happy crafting.

xo, Clarissa

Heart You with Birds and Blossoms

The Male Room #129-  Heart You.

Hello friends. It's time for another challenge at The Male Room Challenge Blog with the theme Heart You -  since it will be Valentine's Day soon.

For this card, I stacked three of my birds and blossom die-cuts and ink blended it using vintage photo and tea dye distress inks. For the little diecut birds, I ink blended these as well with mowed lawn and festive berries. Added glossy accents to give it some shine.

For my sentiment, I used the "my favourite part of us is" from the MFT all about you stamp set combined with the  MFT You trio die-namics. I heat embossed the sentiment in Stamping Up silver EP to stand out. I stacked the word YOU four times to add dimension, and used a polka dotted black and white designer paper from my stash to give it some pop.

Hope this card and the other beautiful cards of the team inspire you to create your valentine project for your loved one. We would love you to join in our current challenge. We also welcome Cornelia as our Guest Designer, please check out her beautiful card and share some love.

Materials: Memory Box Birds and Blossoms die

MFT YOU trio dynamics

MFT all about you stamp set

Inks on background panel: Distress oxides (victorian velvet, tattered rose, shaded lilac, seedless preserves, faded jeans), black soot DI, and night of navy Stamping Up dye ink

Cardstock: mondi Color Copy 300gsm white A4

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

xx Clarissa

Dropping by a line

Hello friends. I participated in the AAA CAS January Weekend Workout over the weekend and this is the card I came up with.

I adore this Fishin' Hole stamp and Pond Builder die from Hello Bluebird. The image is so sweet and you can do lots of layouts and cards with the images and dies. The challenge at AAA Cards was to make a CAS card with the elements OFF THE EDGE. I tried my best to capture just as bit of the pond builder die set while showing the boy still fishing. 

I started my card by planning my layout first.

Then, I used the dies to make my own stencil from surplus packaging so that my card remains as flat as possible by making a pond and grass stencil inked with tumbled glass, mowed lawn, cracked pistachio distress inks. This is the background I came up with. I use a pet feeding mat made of silicone from kmart as it is really smooth so when I ink blend away from the page first into the page, I get smoother ink blending. I learned this from the talented Ali (alilovescarmaking)

Next, I coloured my images with copic markers and adhered most of my images using liquid blue. The images I want to pop up were pointed with foam tape. For the sentiment, I stamped it using memento black and heat embossed with super fine clear embossing powder. I have always admired cards with images that show reflection on water. This is my first try to do it. Did second generation stamping and coloured the shadow with light coloured copic markers.

I am also entering this card for the following challenges:

Simonsaysstamp wednesday challenge - anything goes

Cutie Pie Challenge Blog - 143 Cute, Clean and Simple

Creative moments 183 - anything goes

Thanks for stopping by and happy crafting.

xx Clarissa

Ski-sons Greetings

Hello friends. I haven't played at the AAA CAS card challenges for a while, so I thought I would give the current challenge a go. It's also a win for me as this is an excuse to make a Christmas card for 2020. This is the card I came up with.

I realised when I was planning my card, it was hard for me to keep it to one layer, so I inlayed the little town border from Lawn fawn. I added a post it paper behind the doors and windows to give the light effect. Then, I stamped my polar bear which was coloured with copic markers. To create the snow scene, I tore a piece of paper and used the edge to ink blend it with tumbled glass distress ink. Then, to make the splashing snow effect, I used the smear and swooshing technique by smearing tumbled glass distress ink, add a bit of water. Using a clear scrap acetate, I pick up the ink from my glass mat and swoosh it to my paper by lightly dabbing it. I repeated the same process using mermaid lagoon this time to deepen the snow effect. Here are some photos.

To finish my card, I added white acrylic and Distress oxide splatters  and stamped the sentiment "ski-sons greetings" below my card. 

Materials used: MFT Ski-sons stamp set

Lawn fawn- little town border die

tumbled glass distress ink, mermaid lagoon distress oxide, white acrylic paint

Copic markers for polar bear: E57, E55, E53 Clothes: B05, B02, B00 Scarf and shoes: G17, YG06,YG13 Ski: W5, W3, W1
This card is for the challenge below.

AAA cards - CAS Game #157

Thank you for stopping by and appreciating my work.

Till next project or card,

xo Clarissa

You're Adorbs...

Hello friends, I am back with another card, this time using the adorable, though retired, Petite Plushies from Clearly Besotted stamps. I decided to make this card for my adorable step grandson turning three in a few months. I started my card by cutting my front panel from designer paper and the circle diecut using Mama Elephant's All Prettied Up Die cuts.  Next, I inked my base circle using tumbled glass, salty ocean and peacock feathers. I also inked the outer circle with broken china distress oxide after stacking the diecuts together three times. For my images, I coloured these with copic markers and added foam tape to give it some dimension before adhering it to my circle panel as shown below:

For the sentiment, I used the word "happy" from the Lawn Fawn Happy Happy Happy and the birthday from Lawn Fawn Big Scripty Words stamp and die.

Here is my finished card.

I am linking my project to this challenge

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Besotted with our pets

Copic Colors used: three animals - YR27, YR24, YR21, Y21, Y00, W5, W3, W1, R20, R00

balloons - R37, R24, R22, B99, B97, B95, YR24, YR21, Y11

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day. 

xo Clarissa