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

Mr Cardmaker is a Calendar Guy

No, no pin up pics of me.  I know you're disappointed.  Your breakfast will thank me for being allowed to remain in your stomach, trust me.  =)

I made a couple of calendars!  Early last Spring, I went to a craft show, and hit the Stamps of Life booth, where I picked up a couple of stamp sets, including Calendar to Build.  I thought this was a cute font, and I liked all the little things you could play with to really liven up a calendar.

Well, as much as I like this stamp, the calendar was TOUGH to work with.  You're supposed to be able to shift the days back and forth to make the month start when it should.  That DOES work, but only in months with 31 days.  30 day months (or 28/29 day February) really fouls you up.  I worked like a fool trying to line stuff up for hours until I finally decided to just cut the stamp up.  Muuuuuch easier! 

 Anyway, here's what I came up with--

I used white card stock from Staples for this project.  I found nice, smooth heavy weight card stock on the shelf there, and it has been a good staple card stock for me.  I cut it to 3"x 3 1/4", just large enough to hold the calendar.  I did all my numbers stamping first, starting with the easy 31 day months, then making myself cuckoo with the 30 and 28 day months.  I won't go into all the machinations that I went through, but suffice to say it was not so much fun.
I then went back and added the days header over the numbers, and the month headers above that.  It took me a while to decide to do the year and the flourish and little architectural stamping, but it all looked kind of naked.  The flourish is from PTI Menorah Medley  and the architectural stamp is from Stampendous' Tiled Quad Cube.

After getting all of that done (WHEW!), I gathered them together, and held them tightly at the top.  I laid down a big fat bead of hot-melt glue, and then dipped the tops into it, making sure I hit all the surface of the edges with glue.  I then let that cool, and trimmed off any extra with my snips.  It looked kind of messy still, so I added a strip of my patterned paper to the top to make it look nicer.

Here's a more face-on view--

Originally, I had this great idea to bind them all together with brads.  I even pierced some holes with my paper piercer to get started.  However, my lettering in several of the months was too high on the card stock to make that work.  Wop, wop... Of course, I already had hole in my January, so I added the brads and twine anyway.  Unfortunately, it will be gone once January gets ripped off.  Oh well.  This is a prototype, and it's going to DP Charlie, and he won't mind.  Good lesson learned!
ALSO-- I am worried about what will happen in February when it's time to rip off that first sheet.  Will the hot-melt glue be too strong to tear, and mess up the whole thing??  Maybe some of you know a better glue to use, or can tell me everything's gonna be okay?  I will tell Charlie to use scissors, just to be sure, I guess.

Oh, the brads are from Michael's, and the twine is from We R Memory Keepers.  The ink is Iced Spruce Distress Ink.  I also used Ranger Archival black ink, and Memento London Fog ink on the leaves.

The background is a 4"x 4" piece of Pink Paisley DP, with a stamped die cut from PTI, the Harvest Berries set. It's mounted on TWO pieces of GinaK Designs 120# white card stock.  I placed one of the pieces in my Scor-pal, and scored about halfway up the center.  I then cut from about an inch to one side of the score line to the top of the score line to create a stand for the calendar.  It stood a bit too ramrod straight up and down for my taste, so I snipped just a teeny tiny sliver off of the bottom of the "foot" so it would lean back a bit.
That looks like this--

See that little line at the top of the foot there?  That's where I assembled the front onto the backing without looking at where things were.  That's why there's TWO pieces of card stock at the back. (dumb, dumb, dumb...)  Actually, I like how sturdy it is with the two pieces.  I recommend that.

I also made another one.  This is the first one, actually.  It looks like this--

This is made with My Mind's Eye paper, and I hand inked the purple.  The numbers dies are from PTI.

So, I am glad I worked out all, well, most, ok, several of my problems with these guys.
I found a free print out of a 2014 calendar online, so I can try more, and save them for next year.  If I do one or two a month, I'll have gifts or something to sell somewhere.  These are pretty time consuming, even with all the adjustments I made.  We'll see how it goes.

PS--I just read on a blog somewhere that not having a good supplies list was a real bummer for readers.  You'll notice I linked to most everything I used on these projects.  There has to be a better way to do this, as well, I think.  Today, I went and looked up each and every one of these items and made a link to them. (Ouch!)
Who has a better idea about this?  Is a supplies list even important to you??  Let me know your thoughts, please.

Thanks for stopping by today!
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 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.