The musings and offerings of a burgeoning greetings master

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Mr Cardmaker is a Revisiting Kinda Guy

So, I am really a big, big fan of banners and flags, when used as a celebratory sort of thing.  Bright colors in the wind, flashing in the sunshine, just makes my spirits soar!

I have the banner punch from SU!, and I really like it so much.  I have the banner basics stamp set too, and I do use it sometimes, but I tend to like to use DP when I do use the punch.

Anyway, for my youngest brother Joshua's birthday, I made this--

I have all kinds of fun stuff on this card! 

On the card base, I stamped with PTI Background Basics Medallions set, that really pretty (and SO easy to get great results from) medallion(duh) border at the bottom, and then rounded the bottom with a 1/2" corner rounder.  This is SU! More Mustard CS, btw.

Then I cut a piece of blue CS, Stamped the sentiment (GinaK Designs, Follow Your Dreams)in Night of Navy ink (SU!), and added the strip of DP (American Crafts Patterned Paper, the Play set) at the bottom.  I cut some clouds with A*Muse Studio Clouds Duo die, and Then cut the long banners from SU! Designer series paper, in both the Brights and Royals collections.  I used my SU! heart punch to do the hearts.

I arranged the banners and clouds, then adhered them.  Some I attached to the card stock, some I popped up with foam tape.  The hearts are adhered with the foam tape.  Last, I wound some red and white bakers' twine (Paper Source) around a couple of times, adhered the blue piece, and called it a day.

At this point, I thought it looked okay, so I put it aside.

THEN!

When I went to add my message and send it, I thought it looked kind of flat.  I remembered the additional layers I did on my Fourth of July card (seen HERE), and decided that I could beef this puppy up, too.

That's when I decided to add a heap more banner triangles to this project.  I went into my scraps and chose different papers than the ones I used on the card already.  (These are mostly DCWV, and AC papers, with one Fiskars paper, I think.)  I grabbed my banner punch and went to town, arranging the pieces as I went to look like the breeze had caught them.

I cut another length of red and white bakers' twine, and, using more foam tape, adhered the pieces to the card.

I am happy about this second shift of creativity.

I have decided to take a look at some previous cards that I am holding onto, and seeing if there aren't some other missed opportunities to add some wow factor.

I'll let you know if I come up with anything!

Thanks for stopping by!
All Best-
Richard

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Mr. Cardmaker is (sort of) Finding Some Mojo.

You may have noticed a lack of postings of late. 

Mr. Cardmaker has been a busy, tired, and burned out puppy. 

My wonderful MIL had a mild heart event that required some stent work.   About a week afterward, she fell several times, requiring stitches, a hospital stay, many drugs, a pacemaker (!) and a month at a rehab facility.  Guess who was at every stage of all that activity  (as was the in-and-out services of most of the rest of the family)?

You guessed.

Well, she is in a new home, doing MUCH better (if we could make sure she was using her cane, we'd all feel better), and I have had a moment to get a touch of rest under my belt.

SO!  Expect some postings to happen.


I was going to play along with this weeks Mojo Monday challenge.  However, I did not pay close enough attention to the sketch, so I think I will not enter after all.  I like the card, though, so I decided to share it with you.

I made this--


I bought these stamps at a new (to me) shop I found in a nearby town.  They are by Claudine Hellmuth Studio, and the set is called "So Retro."  I wet embossed the phone image with black embossing powder, and used my aqua painter and black and Mostly Mustard inks to color it in.
The base is a loose piece of gray cardstock I've had from my first supply shopping trip at AC Moore, and the DP is My Mind's Eye.  The ribbon is a one dollar special.
I used a sponge dauber to do the edges of all the paper pieces in black, and I used a stamp from Pennant Parade by SU! for the greeting.

I used my Corner Chomper to round some edges, and used an EK Success punch to do the scalloped edge on the DP.

This was simple, and fun.  I really like the stamps!  I will get to many more projects with those puppies!

I think I will give that Mojo Monday challenge another shot.  Stay Tuned.

Thanks for stopping by!
All Best-
Richard