Mr Cardmaker is Black and White with a Pop

Hey guys!

Today I am showing a card I made for my friend Janeen, who is on the job hunt.  I can't think of  a much more Unfun thing to do, so I hope this cheers her up a bit. 

I made her this--

I love the Cuttlebug folder I used.  I swiped the raised portions with my white pigment ink pad and let it dry overnight.  The background is stamped with my Jenny Bowlin receipt stamp, and the sentiment is SU.  The brads make a real impact on all that clockworks, I think.  I added just a pop of pink, and I think it really says  "girl at work."  To me it does, anyway!    And, just to be sure it stays feminine, a little black and white baker's twine bow on the sentiment flag.

So that's it.  I was planning to enter this at Simon Says Stamp, for their challenge, but I missed the deadline.  *SIGH*...
UPDATE!  I am a DOPE!  I did NOT miss the deadline.....Read the WORDS, Richard!!!!
Anyway, I think Janeen will be happy about it.  Who doesn't love snail mail, anyway?

Thanks for stopping by!  Happy Thursday!
All Best-
Richard

Mr Cardmaker is No Longer a Blue Ribbon Guy

Just a quick posting for the end of the week, to catch you up with some ideas I've been playing with.

My local JoAnn's had some Jenny Bowlin for Fiskars punches on clearance, so I grabbed a couple.  Sadly, I dropped one that made really cool blue ribbon cuts, and broke it.  Wop wop.  I was able to put it to use to make this card, though, and the bird punch, also JB for Fiskars, survived.  There are lots of stamps going on here.  The background is Jenny Bowlin, the phone is Claudine Hellmuth Studio, the So Retro set  , the "You are pretty amazing" is Papertrey Ink, and the "you inspire me" is by Stampin' Up.  The papers are all SU, as is the binder punch.  The card base is GinaK Designs.  I also did some dry embossing on my ScorPal.

The buttons and pearls are dollar bin specials, and the twine is from Paper Source.  Notice how I used my hole punch to make a spot for the twine to rest in? 

This was so fun to make, and I am sad my blue ribbon punch is dead. 

Hope you have a great weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!
All Best-
Richard

More Summer Birthdays

I am really NOT a summer person.  I like the colors, and the sunshine and the long days, and all the flowers.  I DO NOT like the HEAT.  Re my last post about Michigan summers....yeah.....Not with this horrific heat wave we're having!  Lawdy, can we get us some SEPTEMBER already??

ANYHOW....

My nephew/godson Jared had his birthday, and I made him this card--

I was kind of digging this design, because the image happens at the bottom third of the card.  I don't think I find that happening most of the time. 

This card started with a base of SU card stock, with some layers of cut and punched MME Fine and Dandy Boy DP.  I did some detail with yellow and white twine from We R Memory Keepers.

I stamped Jenny Bowlin Studios seal stamp in two colors to create a sun on some SU daffodil delight cs, and circle cut it with a spellbinders die and my Cuttlebug. 

I die cut some clouds with my A*muse studio clouds duo die and sponged them with Memento cantalope ink to make them look like a sunrise, then popped them up with some foam tape.  That little kiss of aqua behind the sun is a circle sticker from Paper Source.

The truck is SU's Loads of Love set, and the dude and presents are from the Loads of Love extender set.  I hand drew the little swirls that look like exhaust/movement.  I stamped the truck both on the card stock and a piece of DP, then cut out the DP one and pieced it on top of the stamped image.  I used copics to color things in.  I mounted the whole thing on some random gray cs, and mounted it up with foam tape.

The inside looked like this--

Here I used sentiments from SU, both from the Loads of Love set (duh), and from Happiest Birthday Wishes (double duh)..
I repeated the use of that seal stamp to make my sun, and I used a piece of smashbook tape to help attach the blue banner piece.
I hand drew a border around the yellow cs with a superfine tipped marker.  I like how it personalizes it a little.

So-  That's my birthday card!

Thanks for stopping by!
Stay out of the heat, for heaven's sake.

All Best-
Richard

Mr Cardmaker LOVES Summertime Birthdays

Boy, summer in Michigan is a BEE-YOU-TEE-FUL thing!  Warm, breezy days, lots of lakes around, gorgeous trees and flowers.   We have had a week of pretty hot days, but they come and GO, and then we have marvelous, open-the -window kind of weather for two more weeks.  I am a happy, happy cardmaking man.

Being in such a great mood, I am able to summon up my mojo and make a fun card for my little brother Daniel.  I think he's 16 now!  OMG.

I made this for him--

This started with a base of PTI Summer Sunrise card stock., which I stamped with Unity Stamp Co.'s Ippity stamp set, "Cuppy Cakes" in Memento Tangelo ink.

The next layer is MME's  Fine and Dandy Boy paper pad, with a backing of some of SU Marina Mist CS.  I stamped candles from Ditto by Studio G in SU Marina Mist ink.  I adhered these pieces to the base.

Then I stamped the receipt stamp from Jenny Bowlin Studio onto some PTI white CS, and stamped the Wishing You sentiment from PTI Simply You with Distress Ink festive berries (part of the 2011 Christmas ink bundle).  I stamped in black, then paper pieced more candles, and colored the flames with copic markers.  I also used a sponge dauber and some Memento Cantelope ink to make a glow around the flames. I hand drew the red line at the bottom with a red tombo marker, just to add a third bit of red (the sentiment, the red brad, and the red line).  Without any red in any of the papers, I thought I needed to make sure there was a big enough presence of red, so it wouldn't look like a mistake.

I added three brads from AC Moore.  The red one was actually green to start.  I dipped the head onto my versamark pad and then into red embossing powder, then heated it to get a red brad.  My first attempt there.  I think it needs work.  BTW--use tweezers or something to hold your brad when using your heat tool.  Trust me...  Anyway, that then got mounted onto a piece of patterned paper to wait for the next step.

I cut a 1.5" x 4.25" pice of numbered paper, adhered a small piece of turquoise ribbon to the back, and adhered it to the card.  Then I added some foam tape to the top layer and adhered it at an angle.  I like to carefully overlap some elements of the underneath layers when I do that.  You can see here I went off the edge a bit, measuring to make sure it would all fit into a regular A2 envelope.

That takes care of the front.  But my sentiment promises some more info....so I went inside...

I did this inside--

I cut a circle out of Marina Mist CS and stamped some candles and a Happy Birthday! (GKD Happy Camper set)on it with Stazon Black ink.  I adhered it to the inside, and then stamped lots more cupcakes around with more Memento Tangelo.  This ink is light enough on the orange card stock that I can write a message without it getting lost in all my images.

I like this card for Daniel, because it's fun without being juvenile. While these images and other items could be used for a younger kid, I think the layers and composition make it sophisticated enough for a teenager without being stuffy.

Next time I have another summer birthday card to share with you.   This one is for another teenager, my nephew, Jared.

I hope your summer is a terrific one, too!
Thanks for stopping by!
All Best-
Richard

Mr Cardmaker has a CASE of the Graduation Hooplas

SO after I made nephew Elliot's card, seen HERE,  I needed three more cards for my younger brother, my cousin, and another nephew.  Time was of the essence, so I made almost identical cards for them all.  They look like this--

This design started with a CASE of a card I saw on Pinterest.  You can see the original with all due credits HERE.  I liked the idea of the partial mortar board hat, and the tassel, so I ran with it.

I started with a white card stock base, 4.25"x 5.5".  I then added a piece of DCWR cloud paper, trimmed down to 4"x 5.25".
With a Jenny Bowlin Studio "seal" (looks like a sun to me) stamp, I stamped a sun on SU Dandelion Delight CS with two yellow shades of ink (sorry, I did not note which I used).  Then I found a Spellbinders circle die that fit it, and put it through my Cuttlebug.
I stamped the sentiment "You" (Papertrey Ink's Simply YOU set) on the sun with gray ink, and then stamped the center circle and the second part of the sentiment with black stazon ink, just to get that amazing crispness.  MUCH easier to read.  I cut the circle part out with a Fiskars circle punch, and adhered it with some foam tape. I attached the sun with some adhesive, making sure to overlap the open edges of the background piece.
To do the mortar board, I used some DCWR Brights cardstock stack green and cut a square, cut it in half diagonally, then rounded the corners with a 1/2" rounder punch.  I used some gray ink on a foam dauber to give some texture to the edges. 
I used a 1 1/2" x 1" piece of the same CS, as well as a scrap of yellow in the same size, and used my snips to create a fringed edge.  I rolled the uncut side around a piece of yellow cord, and made a tassel.  I attached the end of the cord to the underside of the mortar board, and adhered the whole shebang with foam tape.  I secured the tassel to the card front with a glue dot. and let the cord move around freely.
I felt like there was too much negative space at the bottom of the card, so I stamped some birds from Melanie Muenchinger's Gifts form the Sea set, by GKD.  I find myself going back to that stamp often!
I happened to have two graduates with green and yellow as their colors, so I did two of them.  The other one was red and white, with navy. 
I made this one--

This one is the same idea, different colors.  I decided to overlap the sun and the mortar board on this one, rather than have the sun overlap the outer edge.  They both work for me, I think  The red one has a more pronounced tassel.  That would probably change every time I make this card.

SO, graduations are over.  On to new adventures for these guys.  I, myself, am very proud of each of them.

Thanks for stopping by!
All Best-
Richard