Mr Cardmaker is a Krafty Devil

Well, 'tis the season to start making those Christmas/Hanukkah cards. Yup, already. I have been scouring the stamp makers' websites, TRYING to find just the right stamps to get into my hot little hands for this year's cards, and I'll be DANGED if there just has not been exactly the right thing come down the pike for me yet. There's been some contenders, and some things are on the short list, but the big thing has yet to come along and blow my skirt up, so to speak.

However!

I do have my stamps from last year, and those puppies never did get enough inking up, for my taste, so I'm back to them for the moment. And the rest of my Christmas stash, don'tcha know...
AND!
I won a challenge over at My Favorite Things a while back, so I did manage to use my prize to grab up the new Hand-Lettered Christmas sentiments stamps. they are wonderfully LARGE sentiments, and I SO dig them.

So, I grabbed some kraft card stock, because I love it (especially for winter cards), and went to town.

I made SIXTEEN of these in one day--and I may even do MORE, I love them so much.
Warning: many photos ahead.

 I used several stamp sets on these cards, mostly Stampin' Up and Stampendous.  Oh, what an impact a white gel pen can make on kraft !
The panels are all cut with Simon Says Stamp stitched rectangle dies. I love the stitched detail.

 These cards are done with SU Warm Wishes stamp set from 2015. I really wish this was still available. Papertrey ink has a set with similar images, though, and theirs has matching dies, which I love. The sequins here are from Neat & Tangled.

 More from the same set, trying to use a tighter focus image(s). Do you love those sentiments, or what? The white heat embossing is so great with them, too!

 This was one where I thought it might be fun to get tricky. I stamped the skis in Early Espresso ink, and the boughs in Soft Suede, and then just smooched the soft suede with a paper towel to soften it up. It's fine, but I decided to stay on the cleaner side, for the most part.

A detail of that idea.

This tree image is from Concord & 9th.  I adore it. My white gel pen turned it into a birch tree. I also grabbed a water brush to move some of the ink around the tree rings a bit. That's about as fancy as I got with these cards...

 Jumbo Snowflakes from Stampendous. I don't know if these are still available. There are so many snowflake stamps available...

Speaking of Stampendous, this stamp is from their Jumbo Cardinals set. There's a ton of white here, but I think the image holds up really well. I SO dig the white holly berries...

I love that you can see how detailed these stamps are here. Repetition is such a fun design idea, too. It always works, and it's usually pretty easy to do.

Snow covered branches is my FAVORITE use for that magic white gel pen on kraft.

The effect is A. MAZE. ING. These trees are from SU Wonderland set, also from last year.

I imagine these sets appear on ebay from time to time, but trees like this are easily found.

Using the smaller accent stamps can make a wonderful impact, too. Don't ignore those babies!

I did have a few flecks of white embossing powder here and there (you may have noticed), but I'm calling it snow and considering it all part of the rustic look I have going on...that works, right?

Hard to believe I pumped these all out in just one (long) day. I love how relatively easy they were to do, and how wonderful brown and white and kraft look together!

Remember you can find me on Instagram @RLBreaks
More to come...

Thanks so much for stopping by!
All Best--
Richard

Mr Cardmaker Gets His Spooky On with 12 Kits of Occasions

Believe it or not, I have TWO blog posts today! Scroll around to find the other one!

Well, there couldn't be a BETTER reason to get back into the blogosphere than to join in with the AMAZING team at 12 Kits of Occasions. This is a great group of card makers and stampers that actually take the time to put together twelve months of kits that contain the most amazing things, and they send the out to the group (and to guests!) to see how everybody interprets their goodies. It's a FANTASTIC idea, and I'm thrilled that I was asked by the fabulous Jeanne Jachna to join in for my second time!

I LOOOOOOOOVE Halloween cards--almost even more than Christmas cards! They can be cute, spooky, weird, whatever. SO freeing!

I had TONS of fun with this kit! Can't wait to share!

I made ALL of these--

(Pssst! See that swirly stem thingy under the biggest pumpkin? That's actually part of a Christmas word die!)

I'm making a conscious effort to NOT blather on like I usually do, because this is a photo heavy post, but I wanted to jump in here a sec.
There was a TRIO of the trick or treaters, and I went nuts trying to get them AND the castle on without overlapping or cutting anything off. I finally had to give up on the third guy.

But I got him in! Literally!

INSIDE! He was too great to waste.

Well, there's PLENTY more stuff in the kit to keep going, but I am SPENT!

EDIT! EDIT! EDIT!

NO! There's MORE!!!

Because I am crazy like that...

I made these, too--

 These images were SO cute, and the papers that were left over were so great, I just HAD to make these 4"x4" sweet little things! (Besides, my card list is GROWING, so I actually needed more cards!)

Whew! NOW I am done!

I really want to extend a HUGE thank-you to Jeanne Jachna and all the crew at 12 Kits of Occasions for letting me play along. I had a BLAST!

I appreciate YOU sticking with me in this really long post.

Thanks so much for stopping by!
All Best--
Richard

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Mr Cardmaker is Tagged and Bagged

Believe it or not, I have TWO blog posts today! Be sure to scroll around and find it!

I am SO happy to be guest designing for the "Tag! You're It!" blog today! The wonderful Tracey McNeeley was kind enough to ask me to create a tag for this challenge. I am honored and flattered!

The weather is FINALLY cooling off (at least here in the Northeast), and that means more warm beverages, which to my mind, means COFFEE!! Hot, steaming mugs of joe, PSL (That's a pumpkin spice latte, which you already know, if you're a Starbucks fan), cappuccinos, café au laits, on and on and on!

So, I made this--

This is done with Altenew's Coffee Love and Coffee Talk stamp sets. I needed these sets the second I laid eyes on them! I LOOOOVE the artwork, and the sentiments are wonderful.
I also bought, but didn't use here, the Coffee Ring stamps, which offer the sentiment "Coffee, Craft, Repeat." Perfect!

I colored the pot with my new Zig clean color real brush watercolor pens (OMG, that's a LOT of words for a pen) and then coated it with some Glossy Accents. Because, shiny.
The sentiment is all embossed, in both white and clear over Versafine Onyx Black.
A bit of ink blending and water flicking finishes off both pieces.

I also took this opportunity to try out my recent purchase of Ranger's Copper super fine detail embossing powder. Yeah, love that stuff.
The coffee beans in copper remind me of all the copper molds people used to hang on the walls of their kitchens. I went further by using the copper embossing powder to create my own copper card stock for the starburst behind the coffee pot, and used a bit more to frame my sentiment piece. I tapped the edges onto my Versamark ink pad, and then into the copper embossing powder. It makes such a delicate little frame!

I think this is a great tag to use when giving a gift of the grind to your favorite coffee buddy!

I am so looking forward to seeing what my tag inspires you to do! Join in and have fun!
Thanks as well to all the great designers at "Tag! You're it!" I had a blast!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
All Best--
Richard

PS- Find me on Instagram! @rlbreaks