Mr. Cardmaker is Smiling in the Sunshine

I am feelin' fine and wearing lots of WHITE, because I have a lovely SUNTAN at the moment!

We are just back home from a lovely eight days in Key West, Florida. Oh, what a nice thing to do for yourself in the last, never-ending days of winter. Good weather, great food, and we even caught up with several friends we made on previous trips--definitely the BEST part!
OH! AND, we celebrated our second wedding anniversary while there, too! BIG WEEK!!
So, I'm a smiling Mr. Cardmaker, indeed.

It makes me think of these fun tags I made a while ago.
I made these--

Happy and sunny, just like my disposition these days. I love this circle tag die, and I found, while experimenting, that the Stampin' Up Wonderous Wreath stamps fit inside it just about perfectly! Instead of using the full wreath in this instance, I used the second part if the multi step stamps alone, and it gave me just the right amount of leaves for my background.

The leaf dies are from W+9, and the flowers are an older Sizzix set. I have no idea whether this is still available, but it worked just fine for me here.
The smile die is from Little Yellow Bicycle, and I LOVE that it's a chunkier font AND the dot for the "I" is attached, so no trying to hunt that sucker down mid-project.

The sentiment is stamped with an ancient Stampendous set called Everything Happy, and If I ever lose that one I may have to quit stamping entirely, I love it so much.

These will look great tied to a birthday gift. I wish I had thought about them when I gave a bottle of champagne as a gift on Sunday....Wop, wop...

Tags are good. That is all...

Thanks so much for stopping by!
All Best-
Richard

Mr Cardmaker Loves His Pretty Papers

When you start with a really great pad of patterned paper, you can easily have most of your card making battle won before you begin.
I have been stingily doling out papers from a really great Crate Paper 6x6 pad, called DIY Shop.
I caught a glimpse of it while digging through the stash, and it MADE me come up with a fun card set.

I made these--

Fun, right?
I used SU's Happy Happenings for the sentiment, and the stars are from SU's Balloon Celebration set, which are both in the soon-ending Occasions catalog. (Order SOON--Sale-a-bration is going on only until the 31st, and there's FREE stuff to be had! Check out the catalogs in my sidebar!)

The papers are the real stars here, and because I got them all from one 6x6 pad, they all go together PERFECTLY.

I know this makes me pic heavy, but here are some close-ups--

 
These were really super easy to make--
Just cut some papers (I cut various sized strips from 7 different papers and then puzzle pieced them onto the card bases) and adhere them, make these quick sentiment elements and pop them on with foam tape, and add the veneer pieces. (Oh, btw, the veneers are all from Studio Calico, if I remember correctly.)

The great thing is you get a great bunch of cards with minimal effort, and you can use them individually, or give them all together as a gift! If I had a nickel for every time I needed a last minute gift...

Well, that's it, clean and simple. A big thanks to the papers for carrying the heavy load on this one!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
All Best-
Richard

Mr Cardmaker is Mini to the Max

There's something just too sweet about a mini card. I'm talking the little, bitty, 3" enclosure cards that are perfect for sticking in with gifts and such. I find them to be the most wonderful way to express yourself in miniature...

I made these a while ago, and never shared them--

Are these CUTE or what?
Wait, look closer--

Such a HAPPY little thing. I am SURE these got started from me trimming some stamped cardstock with that woodgrain on it. It can only go crazy from there!
The yellow houndstooth is such a fave of mine, as is the button being "threaded" with a tiny sliver of cardstock. Much easier to find the button's holes than with thread!

I moved the sentiment (and tiny hearts) around a bit on each of them--

I like staying close to a primary color scheme here, even though some green does sneak in. Primary colors used his way says "happy" to me, rather that juvenile, the way primaries can easily be pigeon-holed.

Thanks for letting me share my teensy bits of fun!

Thanks for stopping by!

All Best--

Richard

Mr Cardmaker is Wearin' the Green

I think my dad's side of the family must have some Irish in it, somewhere. We always called my grandpa's family British Mutt, so you'd think...

Anyway, I'm not big on the whole St. Patrick's Day deal. When we lived in the city of Boston, it was crazy to see the lines to get into bars happening first thing in the morning. By nightfall, just about everybody had fallen with the night. It was entertaining, but whoa...

I have a card that's doing the wearin' o' the green, but not for St. paddy.
I was playing around with my distress inks, and decided to do a background with ALL the greens, using a text stamp. Lucky me, it fits into the themes at Simon Says Stamp for both the Monday (make your own background) and Wednesday (A bit o' green) challenges!

I made this--

So, the numbers are all done in glitter paper, which is hard to tell in the picture.

Maybe a different angle?

No, not too helpful. Oh, well...

So, yeah, ALL the greens in the Distress Ink line. They JUST fit. The stamp is from Lawn Fawn's Scripty Sentiments. Love them.

The numbers are attached at different depths with foam adhesive. It all worked out pretty well, actually! And, of course, sequins, because sequins.

I may have to try this in other color schemes now. 

Thanks for dropping by!

All Best-

Richard

Balloons Gone Elegant

I love the elegant fonts and sentiments in the Balloon Celebrations stamp set from Stampin Up.
I think it can be used in different ways, both fun and elegant.

I have been going in a fun direction, so far, but I think I found the elegant vein, too.
I made this--

The background of this baby is covered with the a printed vellum from Stampin Up, layered on Soft suede card stock. There are so many beautiful patterns in this pad, I may have to hoard most of it for a while...

The patterned paper is from my stash, and the balloons are stamped with Delicata Gold Glitz ink. The subtle glimmer is so pretty. I wish it showed up in photos.

I think my favorite part of this card has to be the pearls. Paired with the beautiful sentiment, It realy makes me think about bubbles in a champagne glass. 

I love this card.

So, there's the balloons. Lots more to come from this set, I'm sure.

Thanks so much for stopping by!
All Best-
Richard

Mr Cardmaker Loves His Glossy Accents

Well, The fact that these Balloon Celebration stamps and punch make it so easy to make fab cards in all kinds of groupings, it was time to get inventive with it.

I have far too many red stamp pads. I also have way too many red t-shirts, red plaid shirts, and red stuff in general.

I made this--

I used just about every stamp in this set that I could use to doll up these balloons. I love the stars, both the outline and solid images! I have all kinds of red inks here, from Distress Inks, to Hero Arts ink, to Papertrey Ink, to Memento. Lots and lots of red. Yum!

And how about that teensy wood veneer star? PERFECT with the stamped stars!

I have some of these mounted flush to the card front, and some on foam adhesive for dimension.
I also have ALL of the coated in lots of Glossy Accents, which I REALLY wish photographed better...

It looks like I got a small smudge of white there on my sentiment. Wop, wop...Oh well, that'll happen. I'll fix that somehow...

I really like the reds and white on the kraft card base. I only made one of these, but it was really pretty easy to make, and I'm sure I can come up with as many more as I need.

So, Balloons! SHINY balloons! Good stuff!

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

Mr Cardmaker is Ballooning

Ok, so, let's NOT talk about the holiday weight I haven't lost.

Oh, weight wait, not the subject here.

So, after all my coffee and teacup cards with the Balloon Celebration stamp set, it's time to look at some actual balloons!

I made this--

So, I really love the shading stamps that make the balloons look so great. Fun, and elegant, and just really nice.

I started with the small panel with the sentiment, and spread out from there. I drew the border squiggly lines by hand--this is when too much coffee actually pays off.
You can see a peek of the inside of the card, where I did the same idea. Continuity is good.

I feel like I could've used more balloons, somehow, but It looks like the clouds sort of took over here.
These were done with Amuse Studio Clouds Duo dies.I've loved these things for years.

I love the dark brown base on this card. Something different is always fun, and it makes a brightly colored card more suitable for both a man or woman. Great stash builder!

That's why I made so many--

Really, these were nice, strong, simple shapes, even with all the die cutting I had to do.
These cards will come in handy!
More balloons to come!

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

Mr. Cardmaker Gets All Touchy Feely

I have a quick post today, with a card I JUST made for the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge, which is all about using texture on a card.
I won't bore you with my first go around, which involved WAY too much Funky Flock to far too little an effect. I'll let you poke into my trash bin if you really want to see that mess that I tried TWICE.

Anyway, in a totally new vein, I made this--

 So, as you can see, I went with the dry emboss technique to help get my texture. I really like the juxtaposition of the super smooth vellum texture with the rougher wood grain. Then, I went with the juxtaposition of the orderly Swiss dot with the softly rounded corners against the torn edges. I kinda dig the whole yin & yang of this idea.

Front view-

The giant font really packs a wallop on its own, but a few well placed sequins never hurt, in my book!
Speaking of the font, the fact that it is SO big really helped when it came to adding the adhesive behind the letters. Otherwise, I could've had a huge mess showing through the vellum.

Thanks so much for stopping by!
Join the challenge!
All Best-
Richard

Mr Cardmaker Clearly Needs His Sleep

I am a rip-snorting, gimme dat mug, hot and fast coffee fan, to be clear. There are, however, certain times, and the frequency of these times is growing year by year, where nothing is going to satisfy my mood/state of mind/chill like a cup of thick-as-pitch, milk and honeyed Irish Breakfast TEA. Yup, tea. Good stuff.

Now, I can't do tea first thing in the morning. My stomach won't have it. Coffee only, please.
After 2pm, however, while I can and do manage a cup of the high test bean brew, my body finds that it functions better at bedtime if I make the switch to a distillation of the leaf. TEA. SLEEP. GOOD.

I make cards about tea and coffee, too.
I made this--

If you've been with me for the past few posts, you know that I'm into Stampin ups Balloon Celebration stamp set and the Cups and Kettle Framelits. (You may also know you can purchase them through me, too. Let me know...)
My OTHER new friend is an old friend of SU--My So Saffron ink pad. I love soft yellows, always have, and this color makes me very happy, especially with Spring around the corner.

Well, I made a stencil of the teacup image using one of the teacup dies and the heart-shaped steam die. I cut them from some card stock scraps, and used a foam dauber to color them onto my background.
I then used a mask (probably the same scrap of card stock) and the same dauber to get a tablecloth effect under the cup. I freehanded it with the folds (I call them folds, but I was probably trying for stripes. Don't tell anyone!)

I love that kettle die. Nice and clean, and a really good size. The sentiment stamps are fantastic and super flexible.
I have a martini glass stamp that I want to use with that sentiment. I am hoping it will fit right in the glass. I will work on that idea and get back to you.

Anyway, These ideas are only some of a VAST array of things to be done with these tools. Worthy additions to the stash, I must say.

Thanks so much for stopping by!
All Best-
Richard