Mr Cardmaker is Feeling His Moxie Fab-ishness

Well, ain't I something?!  I am the Moxie Fabber of the Week over at Moxie Fab World!  I am very honored to be chosen.  Cath is the BEST!  Lots of fun happening at Moxie Fab World every week!
What a great thing to take me into the holiday season! 

I hope you all had a wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving.  Mine was SO great, but I have to say it was everything BUT relaxing.  We had from 2-4 house guests all week, and THIRTEEN for dinner on Thursday, as well as more dinners tucked in here and there.  Wow, it was fun and really delicious, but I sure needed a NAP by Sunday afternoon!

This week, I wanted to share this card set that I made for my sister, Lisa.  This will probably be the last of the leaves that you'll get from me this season, unless they're Holly or something....

I made this--

Oh, did I mention there was a box?  There's a box.  To hold the cards.

Anyway, a while back I won ('cause my mom says I'm a winner!) a card class from My Little Craft Blog where I learned how do do these leaves with sponge daubers and clear embossing powder, as well as the gold and folder embossed pieces that you see on the bottoms of the cards.  My design is different overall, but I REALLY like this leaf technique, and will use it a lot!

I particularly like the box.  I will make many of those, I'm sure.  It is roomy and sturdy.  Because I won the class, I can't give you too much info on how to create all of these things, but I believe the class is still available for purchase, and it is really fun and informative.  I don't be stealin' from nobody's stuff, so don' ask!

Speaking of leaves, you may remember my rant about having to deal with my forest full of leaves in THIS post.  Well, the other day, Charlie and I returned home from a day out to find that our yard had been mowed and EVERY LEAF WAS GONE!  GONE, I tell you, GONE! 

Turns out, my neighbors Chris (across the street) and Eric (behind us) had been out with their tractors, and after they did their own leaves, got to chatting and decided to make a contest of "who-could-get-up-our-leaves-fastest."  Are these guys the best, or what???  Well, I baked them cookies, and, of course, made them cards. 

They look like this--

The sentiment is from 7Gypsies, and the leaf stamps are from Studio112.  I used the same leaf technique for the card stock leaves, as I'm sure you can tell.

Anyway--Chris has been back 4 times(!) to get more leaves, and I could not be more grateful.  He has gotten a thank you care package to supplement his cookies, btw...

SO, That's about it. I have some close-ups of this card set to show you...

Here they are--Please forgive the blur on some of them.

 I will have some Christmas cards to share with you next time!

 

Thanks so much for stopping by!

All Best-

Richard  

Supplies--

Card set and box--card stock, GinaKDesigns; Inks, Stampin' Up!, Ink it Up, Memento; papers, Stampin Up!, Buttons, Joann's: Embossing powder, Ranger; twine, Ranger; leaf punches, EKSuccess and Fiskars.

Thank You cards--Card stock, papers, and inks all Stampin' Up!; sentiment, 7Gypsies; leaf stamps, Studio112; buttons, Joann's; twine, Ranger; leaf punches, EKSuccess and Fiskars.



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

Thankful, Through the Pain and All...

My house is on a beautiful 3/4 acre lot, with many trees.  We love our lot, and we are smart enough to allow professionals mow the lawn for us, because we would either wreck it or be living with waist high grass.  We are also pretty frugal.  Okay, we're cheap, especially when it comes to doing stuff we really know how to do.  When we asked our lawn people about leaf collection, they came back with a quote that made my eyes pop.  Needless to say, we declined nicely. 

Let me tell you how we are DEFINITELY having them do the leaves next year.  We have already disposed of 27 lawn bags of leaves, and I bagged up 11 more yesterday.  There are probably another 20-something bags worth still out there on the lawn.  I love my trees.  I do.  I am NOT such a fan of all the leaves.

Of course, my favorite tree is the last one in my WHOLE neighborhood to change color, and while it is indeed magnificent, it makes me nuts to think I am going to be collecting those leaves well into the middle of November.  I am getting too old for this.  I need to move back to a city, I think.  Speaking of backs, mine is killing me.

I am able to break from the leaf nightmare to make a card or so every once in a while.

I made this--

I won a tutorial class from Beth at My Little Craft Blog, where she makes a wonderful card set and box.  The LEAVES are the real jewel of this class, and I will be using her technique until the end of time to do leaves from now on. 

This involves using inks and daubers to color your punched or die cut leaves, then coating them in Versamark and coating them with clear embossing powder, which of course you then heat with your heat tool.  They are gorgeous and shiny and just wonderful!

This card is on GKD Kraft card stock, and the papers are Stampin' Up.  The gold flag piece is done with Martha Stewart gold glitter embossing powder (which is just a bit chunky for my taste, actually).

The stamp is from Inkadinkadoo, and I used my Versamarker to get the tree to accept more glitter embossing powder.  I used a background stamp from Inkadinkadoo on the pale grey piece with some SU crumbcake ink to give it some interest.  Spellbinders dies made the framed window for the image, and the whole piece is raised off the kraft with some foam tape.

I like Thanksgiving cards.  I am entering this one in the Paper Smooches Thankful challenge.  I love their stamps, and I have NONE yet.  Wish me luck!

I have some pictures of one of the card sets I made using the instructions from the video class I won.  I changed up the design a bit, because that's what I do.  Those pictures will be coming up soon!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
All Best-
Richard

Mr Cardmaker is in Autumn Heaven

Autumn is my favorite time of year.  Not so surprising, really.  How could you NOT love the colors, the smells, the crisp air? 
Now, I once knew a man who got depressed when autumn came.  When I asked him about it, he said it was because "it only means that winter is coming."  Terribly unfortunate for him, to have that reaction to such a beautiful time of year. 

Anyway, I decided to do some autumn cards, and I came up with a Thanksgiving (or just a thank you) card that I am really happy with. 

I made this--

 

This card's inspiration comes from the little gold colored panel.  I started with a piece of cream cardstock, and hand colored it with a direct to paper technique, using Mostly Mustard and Crumb Cake inks (SU).  Then I ran it through the Cuttlebug in an embossing folder, and re inked it with more crumbcake ink, hitting only the raised portions.

 

I backed it with a panel of gray card stock , colored with more crumbcake ink and edged with Memento Espresso Truffle ink, and added some white brads that I colored to look cream with a copic marker (E53).

 

The background was stamped with my Inkadinkadoo flourish stamps in Versamark ink, then wet embossed in clear embossing powder.  Then, more crumbcake ink to make it all pop.

 

The leaves were the super fun part for me.  I grabbed scraps of designer paper AND the piece of scrap paper that was under the cardstock I did my hand coloring on, and punched leaves with my Fiskars leaf punch. 

The scrap leaf looks like this--

 

 

 

I did MORE direct to paper on the rest of the leaves, making them bright but streaky and worn looking.  Doing the direct to paper AFTER punching helped to give the edges more presence, and I didn't have to go back and add edging on each leaf with a sponge dauber later.

 

They looked just a bit flat to me, so I grabbed my Delicata gold ink, and hit them all with that.  WOW! what a difference!  Lots of life, and a wonderful little shimmer and glow. 

 

I curled the leaves around a pencil, with some edges going forward, and some going back, and I adhered them by adding tape only to the places where the leaf hit the surface, so lots of edges were loose, and lots of texture was visible. 

 

The label was made with memento Espresso Truffle ink on a stamp by inkadinkadoo, and punched with an SU punch.  I punched a second label out of Kraft card stock, edged it in the same ink, and cut it in half to add a backing to the sentiment piece. That was added with some foam tape for some dimension.

Here's a close-up of that--

 

 

 

All in all, I really like this one, especially because of the shiny stuff! 

 

I hope your autumn is a beautiful one, and that you are getting wonderful inspiration from Nature at its finest!

 

Thanks for stopping by!

All Best-

Richard

 

Supplies:  Cardstock-GinaKDesigns, Bazzill Basics; Embellishments- Recollections(brads)Ink-Tsukineko Memento and Delicata, Stampin'Up, Studio G, Copic Marker;  Papers, Me & My big Ideas, My Mind's Eye;  Stamps- Inkadinkadoo;  Tools-Stampin' Up and FIskars punches, Scor Buddy, Cuttlebug machine and embossing folder.

 

 

 





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