I am sure you recognize the shape. I have artist friends and blogs I follow that alter the coolest things. They alter jars, silverware, picture frames, vintage tins, vintage windows and shelves and vintage clothing. Not I. Well I do that stuff sometimes. No, not today. Today I go and alter a toilet paper roll! Of all things, really!
I found though that this little gadget-- also known as a Doo Doo tube --you know, when your kids take an empty toilet paper roll and go around the house blowing it like a kazoo, making the Doo Doo sound!

Well this gadget also covers my desk duster really well, so it maintains it's shape. I didn't like the look of the plain brown toilet paper roll, so I took an aluminum soda can piece --yes I cut up an aluminum soda can so I could alter the metal. I ran that piece of aluminum through my Cuddlebug with a Tim Holtz embossing folder. I then adhered the aluminum piece to the roll with that fantastic double sided red tape. It adheres really well, and this needed strong adhesive. I also ran some brads up and down the seam so it would stick even better, and give it a more rustic look. I punched some holes all around the edges of the top and bottom and took some black lanyard lacing and wound the bottom and top with that. Then I took some acrylic paint, some ocean blue and bahama blue and painted the entire surface with Americana acrylic paint, and let that dry. When that was completely dry, I sanded off quite a bit of the blue paint, and then used some Perfect Pearl mica powders. I covered the surface with the medium and then spritzed the powders with water and painted the copper, bronze and a little gold on and let it dry. That was it! Now I have a rather cool duster cover. My altered doo doo tube!

This beauty is a design by Dee or Deelight in our SCS stamping group. I love, love, love this design, the colors, and the technique used to make this ultimately cool masculine card. The color is an awesome SU blue ink. Dee had some wonderful shiny silver designer paper, and that was put into a gears theme embossing folder, then swiped on the up-textured side with black ink. Very neat effect. Labels two Spellbinders was used, and then blue sponging around the stamped motorcycle image while the image was still inside the Spellbinders die! Then she tied a washer around the panel and added three silver brads. Very cool. Oh, and various gears where stamped on the background with white ink. Inside was a chain link stamp, and a You're the Best stamped image. Awesome! And Totally Rad!

This card  was designed by Carol - a new Carol-haha! I think we have three now!

She used a fish stamp and embossed it after stamping in three different colors. Nice rounded corners, and a great theme for men!

This card was designed by Laurie. Laurie had some great old German music papers and I took the liberty to stamp in lightly direct to paper with the red ink pad. I also distressed the edges. The word Love was put on a Spellbinders die cut and brads were used to adhere it. Neat Date Stamp used for the theme. Nice black and white ribbon attached with the Tim Holtz tiny attacher. Fun valentine to give to a Guy!

This card was designed by JoAnn. She used the Tim Holtz theme embossing folders, and Stampers Anonymous sentiment stamps. I love her use of male patterned papers and distressing the embossed images and edging around the DP. Nice copper clasp holds the card  in place and another sentiment is stamped inside.

This is the inside of JoAnn's card. (above).

 This is Danette's design. Danette did an ATC! (Artist's Trading Card). Danette used the clear acrylic and passed it through a Tim Holtz embossing folder, and sanded it slightly to bring out the image since it was so clear. Then she had clear pocket corners to tuck the acrylic sheet into on top of the tan sentiment piece, stamped with a Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous sentiment. Inside is an embossed image swiped with color to bring out the impression as shown below here.

Showing the cute little envelope and key that went along with Danette's design.

Below is my design for the swap. I simply used some cool DP I found at Archiver's something along the lines of a Pear Tree I think. All the paper designs looked masculine to me. Then I added Tim Holtz gears I embossed and cut out and then swiped with Distress Walnut Stain ink. The stamped images and sentiments are a Gears theme from Technique Tuesday. I attached the stamped image panel with the Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher. Cuttlebug die cut corner. I also attached a little key from 7 Gypsies with Glossy Accents glue.

 This awesome card was designed by Katherine. She used all SU colors and stamps. This one is from the Surfer group. I love this image stamped in that pretty blue! I love how she surrounded the image with the bold, bright yellow and orange. The inside panel was water color paper wet down with a spritzer with water. Then the inks from the stamp pads were used by pressing the lid of the stamp pad down onto the ink pad and using water and a paint brush to place on the water color paper. We dried it with a heat gun and then pressed the sumburst embosing folder onto the paper and Oila! A beautiful sunburst impression to go with the Surfer! Very Cool Indeed!

Another one of my design, using a different designer paper.
Thanks for looking at my Masculine Cards this week!

Masculine cards for a swap

Here are some cards I made for a Masculine Card Swap on SCS.

Sure had a fun time making! I used several Cricut cuts from the Heritage cartridge. I also used the Cricut Imagine cartridge JT. It has a nice steampunk feel to it. I chose several masculine papers and Heritage cuts that looked masculine. Some of the labels are from the Heritage cartridge too.

CTMH Giveaway from My Passion for Scrapbooking

A cool giveaway is going on at http://www.mypassionforscrapbooking.com/browse-65008/Giveaways.html
I sure would love a chance for this too, but if you are here you need to check it out too! Its for the Art Philosophy Cricut Collection cartridge! I've been drooling over this cartridge for awhile! You might be too!
Cool blog btw too!

Masculine Birthday Card

Birthday Card I made for my son. For this card, I used some Tim Holtz embossing folders, and inked them two different ways. For the car in the top left, I inked inside the folder first before embossing the cardstock. The gears and the car in the bottom right, I inked after I embossed them. The Birthday sentiment is a studio 112 stamp. Tied a black cord around it. Background dp is Stella Rose from My Minds Eye.

Magic of Oz with Graphic 45 papers

I fell in love with these marvelous papers from Graphic 45's The Magic of Oz. I found this paper box book form at Hobby Lobby, plain. I then took some choice pieces of the Magic of Oz sheets and collaged the pieces outside and inside my faux book. I did several things to make my book unique. I made a packaging tape transparency of Dorothy. To do that, you take clear packing tape ususally about 2 inches wide, and simply lay it down firmly on top of the selected image. I used two strips of packing tape and taped over Dororthy so no part of her was not covered. I then burnished it on firmly by taking my bone folder and applied pressure to the image to make sure it was air tight on the tape. Then I dropped the image in warm water and let it set for about 2-3 minutes. Then I gently rubbed of the backing the pulpy paper will rub off with your thumb and fingers. Rub off the pulp until you see through and oila! A very cool transparent image! I then made sure it was dry, and even took my sanding block and gently sanded off any little paper shreds. You must be careful not to rub off the image, just rub off the paper backing. I have done this a few times before, and what's neat about transparent images is that you can lay them on other paper and that paper will show through just enough to entice you to look closely. It's a lot of fun too. I put the transparent image on a clear acetate sheet, and adhered another Graphic 45 newsprint from the Magic of Oz series as a clear page for the book. I taped the clear page on with clear transparent regular tape. I thought it would be neat to put one of those cute battery operated tea lights inside since I have a transparent page, but the light is a little weak to totally get the effect of the transparent image. 

For the outside of the book, I used black linen cardstock. It totally looks like an old book cover. I just trimmed it in gold trimming I found at Red Lead. It was a fun project, and it definitely qualifies for altered art. One of my other crafty things I like to do! Hope you enjoy!

Tim Holtz distress stained Happy Birthday!

A new card using Tim Holtz Ranger Distress Stain dobbers. For this flower, I used Walnut Stain and Broken China. The hemming lace is stained with Broken China. The frame is a Cricut die from the Cindy Loo cartridge. The yellowed ledger paper is from Stella Rose. The patterned paper is from my Cricut Imagine More cartridge. The rusty gold embossed paper is a piece I found at Hobby Lobby a few years ago. The music paper was from my stash, and I tore it and stained the edges with walnut stain. Used a rosette flower found at Michael's as the center of the TH flower. Happy Birthday sentiment is from Hampton Arts. I did stitch around the edges with my Janome Sew Mini. Card is for a very special person, my MIL!

A special Thanks!

This is a Thank-you card I made for a special friend! The designer paper is Citrus from K&G paper company. The image is a Studio G clear stamp I found at Michael's. I used copics to color in the image. I used scalloped Nesties to frame the image. I sponged orange die ink around the white scalloped frame, and them nested it inside the blue DP from the Citrus paper pack. I lifted the image with foam dots. I used paper flower punches and MS leaf frond punch for the flowers where I only glued the stem to the paper and let the flower tops rest on the lifted scallop frame. Each flower center has a mini brad. I then used jewels on the strip of striped designer paper. The card base is a bazil aqua plain cardstock. Simple but sweet!

Gruffies Birthday using Copics

This is a card I made for a certain little girl for her birthday. I am fairly new with Copics coloring. I do love to color with them! The ribbons were a little time consuming but fun. When I was done coloring in, I used Labels Eight to frame the image. Then I took the Terrifically Tacky Red tape and lined the edges of the back and then took this pale blue-green ribbon and tucked it and bunched it and made this ribbon ruffle around the frame. Then I simply used K&C designer papers as the background for her card. Fun and Sweet! Just love these Gruffies images! I got this one from my friend Julie from her online shop Scrapbook Store at your Door! Happy Birthday to my little someone special!

MIL Tray, Printers Tray altered for gift!

This is another view of the same tray. The first pic I took outside and this one I took inside.
Lots of fun! Details are in the post below this one!