Mr Cardmaker Gets Negative (And Feels Really Positive About That)

You know how sometimes you get an idea in your head, and it just won't leave you alone until you do something about it? 

I bought these Labels Twenty-two dies from Spellbinders, and while making a die cut with one of them, it came to me that if I centered it just so, I could use the negative to make a card.  So I did. Oh, the card I could make with this!!
And it sat.
And sat.
I kept looking at it, putting it aside, contemplating just tossing it....and THEN!

 

I made this--

 



So, the problem with wanting to use a die negative to make a card is that there's a big hole in your card. uh, Hello!

 I decided to go Springy and bright, so I got out the Lucky Limeade card stock, and filled that sucker in, nice and tight, making sure it would NEVER fall apart.

Then, I decided to stamp. After. Wop, wop......

What followed was a lengthy series of masks and cursing, with a (finally) decent medallion motif at the end of it all. I sponged some white into the center of the medallions, and onto the edges of the sentiment tag.  I was sort of looking for an early morning mist kind of feel, despite my use of really bold colors.

 

The flowers started with Melon Mambo card stock, which I sponged with white ink to texture things up.  I crumpled them up in my hand (a good thing to do after the aforementioned stamping debacle) before assembling them with a white mini brad.  The leaves are more medallions, punched out, cut into sections, and crumpled up.  After adding the flowers to the card, I added tiny dots of Glossy Accents to make it look like dewdrops.

 

The sentiment tag is just a strip that I gave an edge to by slipping it into Modern Label punch from SU.  The punch itself would have been too small, so this works.  The sentiment is from GinaK Designs' Enjoy the Sunshine set.

 

A few green rhinestones, and that's that.  Oh, I will need to make a big envelope for this one, since it's about 1/2" thick.  No biggie. (Famous last words)

 

So that's my story, and I'm sticking with it.  Uh, PLANNING would be the watchword for today.  I would probably have been able to pump this baby out TONS faster, if only I had thought the whole thing through first.  Live and learn. 

 

 We're off to Chicago for the holiday weekend.  Any plans for you??

 

Thanks for stopping by!

All Best-

Richard

Mr. Cardmaker is Getting (Senti)Mental

Last week was a big one for taking down and storing all the shiny Christmas goodness that makes the house so warm and pretty for the holidays.  Boy, does your house look as lonely and boring as mine after you put everything away?  Boo, hiss...

Anyhow, I did start the year with a card project, but it has taken until now for me to get the photos ready to post.
Nephew Elliot has his 19th birthday (don't EVEN get me started on THAT span of time) on Friday, and the family gathered this past Friday to celebrate, since he's back to college this week.  He's the big skier in the family.  (You may have seen THIS POST last January for him,and if you haven't, check it out!).  I try to make him a card that has snow and thoughts of skiing in it, even if there are no actual skis to be found.

I made this--

This started with a 4"x4"  piece of Stampin'Up cajun craze striped  DSP, with a circle out of the middle using a Spellbinders die.  I then cut a slightly smaller circle out of a 4"x4" piece of light blue paper from the rack at AC Moore.  I think it's a Bazzill Basics sheet.  Those two pieces were layered together.
Then I cut a piece of Nearly Navy DSP (again, SU)to 4"x4", and stamped with a snowflake die from PTI's In the Meadow set, and I heat embossed it with some holographic embossing powder from Paper Source.


I tore some scraps of white shimmer cardstock for PTI into strips, leaving lots of high and low places in each strip.I highlighted them with some Stickles, and when it dried, I layered them onto the blue piece, using glue and foam adhesive.  I just found a set of two mini punches at Target, and I used the tree punch to create the tiny trees.  I added snow to each tree with my handy-dandy white gel pen.  I added those to the scene with glue and more foam adhesive.  Then I added the circle cut pieces with foam adhesive, to act as a frame for my winter scene. That was all then layered onto a 4 1/4"x 4 1/4" piece of chocolate brown piece of card stock.

To do the clouds, I took scraps of two different shades of gray card stock, as well as some silver glitter paper (from Michael's), and die cut several clouds with my A*Muse Studio Cloud Duo dies.  I sponged some gray ink onto the bottoms of the clouds, and added some Stickles for more shine.  I adhered some clouds to the blue sky, and some to the outer circles, using both glue and more foam adhesive.  I like that the glitter clouds are just peeking out, showing off their "silver lining!"  Last, I added some snowflakes punched out of vanilla DCWV glitter paper with my new Martha Stewart snowflake punch-around-the-page set.  I like this one, because it punches two different sized snowflakes!

The sentiment is taken from PTI's Winter Penguin set, and that is stamped in black Archival Ink onto some of the lighter gray card stock, and layered onto a circle of brown card stock.  I used my Sakura glitter pen to trace a shiny outline around the gray piece, then I adhered the whole thing to the card front, and then adhered THAT to a white card base.

So, sort of elegant, fun and shiny, right?  Well, I just can't leave good enough alone.

I had to mix it up a bit, by adding my own special brand of irreverence to the inside.

I did this--

I did the (ahem) sentiment on my computer, and printed it out on some card stock.  I cut it into a strip, and layered it onto scraps of paper used on the front of the card, then cut it all out with a Labels Four die from Spellbinders.I edged it just a touch, and then adhered it to the inside of the card.

Elliot liked this card a whole bunch, though I am not sure he appreciated the jokester in me so much.  Some people get me, and some don't.  Oh well.  I got a million of 'em, folks!

All in all, a pretty good way to kick off 2013's card making.

Hey, thanks for stopping by.  I hope you got some inspiration, and maybe a laugh.
All Best to you in 2013!
Richard

Supplies:
Card stock and paper-  Stampin'Up, DCWV, Bazzill Basics.
Ink-  Versamark, Ranger Archival Ink, Memento London Fog, sakura white gel pen and clear glitter pen
Tools-  Cuttlebug, Spellbinders dies (Small and Large Circles, Labels Four), A*Muse Studio Cloud Duo dies, Martha Stewart punch-around-the-page snowflakes punch, scor-pal, marvy embossing heat tool.
Other-- tape runner, foam adhesive, Paper Source holographic embossing powder.

Mr Cardmaker is a Make-It-Work Kinda Guy

So, my dear friend and SIL Jan had a birthday.  I made her a gorgeous set of cards and a box to hold them.  I was in a hurry, and never took pictures.

This is the part where I hang my head and shake it miserably.

HOWEVER!
I made her a birthday card, and I DID take pictures of THAT!

It looks like this--

Cute, right?  Those clouds, courtesy of my A*Muse Studio Clouds Duo dies are double layered--
A layer of vellum that is adhered on the inside of the card, and then the patterned paper that serves as an overlay.  There's also the flags, thanks to My Mind's Eye, and stamping (Studio G) and copic coloring, and some really nice leaf things I created with card stock, punches, and a bit of gold embossing powder.  Oh yeah, and those cute little photo corner things.  Jan bought me the punch, so of course, I had to use it on her card...

ANYWAY!
Those clouds should have NEVER looked like that.  Okay, okay, they look really nice and all....

BUT!  And this is a BIG but!  Not to be confused with my own big butt....but I digress...

The clouds were originally meant to be a reverse die cut, showing some lovely patterned paper (also MME) behind, as you opened the card.  However, my Dear Partner failed to understand the concept, and wrote his personal message ALL OVER the area that was supposed to be clouds!  ARGH, I say!  ARGH!!!!!!

Well, I stared at the dang thing for about 15 minutes before I came up with the solution.  I did make good use of the time, heaping copious amounts of guilt upon said DP.

When I finally did come up with the solution, I quickly got it all together, and was able to tuck it into DP's luggage.  Oh yes, did I mention the time crunch of the impending car to the airport that I had to beat?  No WONDER I didn't get to take photos of the card set and box I made her.

Anyway. she loved everything, and no one was the wiser...well, no one but my little frayed NERVES.

I guess it goes to show that things are RARELY really ruined, unless the dog or cat or kids get hold of them.  I have none of those at the moment, so no excuses for me!  A little creativity goes a long, long way!

Thanks for stopping by!
Happy Thanksgiving to my US readers!!
All Best-
Richard

Mr Cardmaker CASEs Himself

A couple of years ago, in my "early days" of cardmaking, I saw a video about using the masking technique, and decided to try it out with my shiny new stamps and $1 Studio G ink pads. 
I made this--

This was made with Inkadinkadoo Flowers and Stampendous Happy Everything sets, and I am sure this is on discount card stock, with DCWV paper as the mat.  I thought this was kind of cute, especially for a beginner.

Now, as a semi-beginner, I decided that I really liked the way it all turned out, so I went back to it and tried to see what else I could come up with.

So, I made this--

So, immediately I notice that my new, homemade lightbox is working pretty well!  Boo-yah!

I like this well enough, and I think there is at least SOME progress being made. 

I still have DCWV paper on there, but I have graduated to much better SU and PTI card stock. 

Surprisingly, my StudioG stamp pads still have some ink, and I LOVE the colors and coverage.
 
The bottom of the card is punched with an EK Success punch, and if you look closely, you can see the white dots on the inside of the card.  I could NOT get a good shot of the thing closed.

The pearls are from Kaisercraft, and the ribbon is the LAST of my roll from AC Moore.  No ACM in MI, and I am sad that I can't find any more of this stuff.  Wah.

So, what do you think?  Any progress happening here (other than my photography skills), or was I better as a newbie?

Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful weekend!
All Best-
Richard

Some Call Me Mr. Mojo

No, not really.  I was able to get myself a bit of mojo though, in time to put together a card for Mojo Monday 261.    That sketch looks like this--

I made a card for my SIL Andrea, who is having a birthday with a ZERO in it!  Maybe it'l be lucky for me over at Mojo Monday.

I made this--

I went out on a limb and substituted my circle of leaves for the large circle in the sketch.  Gotta take some chances, sometimes!

This is on GinaK Designs Pure Luxury Kraft card stock. with random bits of very old card stock used in the other elements.  The leaves are Punched with an EK Tools punch from  scraps (mostly from Me & My Big Ideas), that I inked up using a "direct to paper" method.  I also curled up some of the edges of the leaves.
This picture doesn't show it, but they're all coated with some Brilliant gold Delicata ink, so they're really sort of glitzy.  I wish the picture was better at showing that, because it's sort of the best part.  *sigh*....

The gold flag started as textured white card stock, that I ran through my Cuttlebug with an embossing folder, then inked with both sponge daubers and "direct to paper" on the raised surfaces.

I stamped the sentiment in Memento Espresso Truffle ink with a stamp from GKD Enjoy the Sunshine set, and stamped flourishes from inkadinkadoo, then cut it out with a Spellbinders Nestabilities die.  I stamped the flourishes both in Crumb Cake ink from Stampin' Up, and more Delicata ink.

The backgrounds stamp is from Ditto, and I got that pup at Michael's for $1.99!!  Love that!  The ribbon is from the dollar bin at Michael's too.  The button is an old one, and the twine is some random stuff from AC Moore.

This is actually the THIRD in a series using that embossing folder.  I made two others, that are more, Autumn/Thanksgiving themed.  I'll show you more of those next time. 

Thanks for stopping by!
All Best--
Richard