Mr Cardmaker is the Berries

Well, this week I am entering the Tag! You're It #50 challenge over at their blog, and I actually spent quite a few hours fretting over this one.

I made this--

I loved the inspiration piece, which is this--

And I decided that some juicy red strawberries were in my future!

I love strawberries, both to eat and look at. They're like these amazing jewels, and they're sweet and tart and just wonderful. Did you know they were actually very low in sugar, for a fruit? Good to know!

Well, I started with a manila tag and a stamp from GinaK Designs That I have owned for years. It's my only strawberry stamp that I own, I think, and was just perfect for what I wanted to do.

I made a couple of masks, because nothing but a big bunch of berries would do, and I stamped all over the tag with Versafine Black onyx ink, which I then embossed in clear.

The next part was water coloring everything with Distress Inks, allowing (in  most cases) different colors to dry before layering more and more ink for depth.

The last steps on the tag involved drawing in white dots with a gel pen, and then coating just the red parts of the berries with lots of Glossy Accents. Sadly, the glossy accents mostly wiped out my white dots, but there's just enough to show, so I'm living with it.

I coated a houndstooth embossing folder with versamark and ran my black backer tag through my Cuttlebug, and then clear embossed it for some shine. Such a great effect, and I really liked the fact that the powder wasn't exactly perfect.

For the card base, I first used more distress ink to deepen the card stock color, then stamped a leaf pattern all over. I added a panel of black and white striped paper to one side, and then mounted my tags.

(HEY! I am having a serious problem getting fun foam to stick to things-my ATG gun doesn't work, Tombo Mono multi glue didn't do it, even Glossy Accents needed some nudging, even though once I weighted it down it did finally work. Anybody else having this issue? I love using fun foam, but COME ON...)

Anyway--

Notice there's a diagonal thing going on here--diagonal paper stripes, diagonal lines make up the leaf pattern, and the tags are placed on diagonals. AND, the twist of the twine is basically a diagonal, too!

To soften things up a bit, I added a VERY round banner to the tag, which I made by die cutting a round frame and trimming it. I added a sentiment and some yellow ink, to punch up the folds, and after adhering it and some additional leaves, I thought I was done.

As I looked at it, though, I decided that I couldn't just leave that one little bit of yellow hanging there by itself, and I punched and inked some tiny flowers to look like strawberry blossoms. It carries the strawberry idea further, and gives my an opportunity to get THREE areas of yellow onto my card, which it really needed. Plus, I was able to really get a nice little primary color scheme out of the whole thing, too! Hey, green is a neutral here!

I created a panel to use on the inside of my card, doing each step as I did my tag, and just as I was getting ready to adhere it to the inside of my card, I got a huge black smudge on the top corner. ARGH!

Well, I wasn't about to throw the whole thing away, so I got my trimmer involved and got this--

It really leaves me with a pretty small writing area, but you know what, just look at the pretty stuff. I can always write on the back, too...

So that's my card!

You can also see my things (and lots of them well before they hit the blog) at my Instagram @rlbreaks.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

All Best--

Richard

Mr Cardmaker is Neutral about Being In the Pink

Well, I happened to stumble upon the MTF Card Challenge site this week, via the lovely and UBER talented Kay Miller. If you don't know her and her beautiful cards, as well as her amazing polymer clay ornaments, you REALLY want to!

The sketch challenge this week looks like this--

I made this--

I used the MFT new Flashy Florals card kit to do most of this card, with the addition of the flower on the black strip, where I grabbed a stamp from MFT Warm Wishes stamp set to do non-holiday duty!

I was channeling my inner Kay Miller when I made this card, because you will find, when you visit her blog, that she is the reigning queen of the gray leaf. She is my muse!

I worked my white pigment ink and versamark ink hard on this project, as well as my clear and white embossing powders. I was able to create a variety of both shade and sheen, whether it's the flat white on the card base, the shiny, yet muted white on the black panel, or the flat stamped leaves against the shiny embossed flowers. Sheen is so hard to photograph. You may get an idea of it in this close-up--

In this close-up you can see the difference in doing the clear embossing powder over the finished flower, like in the white flower, vs doing the white embossed center over the clear embossing on the black flower. The white flower has a diffused, almost antique melty effect. Kind of a cool look!

This was an instance when I got a solid idea about where I wanted to go pretty quickly, which is a rare occasion for me, honestly. I'm pretty happy with this one!
Try this challenge--it was fun!

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

Mr Cardmaker has Depth

Well, it's long over, but I got this great stamp set from Stampin' Up during the 2016 Sale-a-bration, and I had some good fun with it.

I made this--

I LURVE big, chunky fonts like this, so I was all over it when I saw it. I made a panel using lots of the stamps in the kit, and did some second generation stamping with the flowers and sprigs.

I stamped the big sentiment in bright orange, and the flowers in peach.
I liked them together, but it was a bit of a stark jump from one color to the other.
So...

With my waterbrush, I roughly went over the tops of the orange letters with my peach ink, and because I was using a water soluble orange ink, I was able to do a nice blend of the two colors. It was a really nice gradient, and it made the two colors work together much better! I went really quickly, and did not try to be really fussy about it at all.

I matted my panel on some navy cardstock, and mounted that onto a gray card base that I previously stamped in gray ink with a woodgrain stamp from Hero Arts. A doily and some navy and white baker's twine finishes it off.

Or so I thought!

At the last minute before sending this card, I grabbed my clear Wink of Stella brush pen and hit the peach/orange letters with a slick of shiny stuff. Because, shiny, of course. No photo of that one, I fear.

One last look--

This one went to our niece Jessica. I hope she likes it!

By the way, you can also follow me on Instagram, @rlbreaks. You may even catch a couple of things BEFORE they hit the blog, as well as thing you may never see on the blog!

Check it out!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

All Best--

Richard

Mr Cardmaker is on the Road to Hell

Because of good intentions, don't you know...

Well, I made these really fun Easter cards about two weeks before Easter. We then went on vacation the weekend BEFORE Easter, and in the hustle and bustle to get out the door, I completely forgot about the cards. Wop, wop...

Anyway, they were cute!
I made these--

Yes, it's me and those Crazy Birds AGAIN! I am STILL smitten with these dang things.

So, I started with some yellow ink and card bases, and made lots of backgrounds. I did this by hand, stamping each bird one at a time, but I bet I could've rocked them all out in half the time on my MISTI tool. Next time...

Then, I stamped the fat chick bird several times, and used my ink blending tool to color their heads and bodies, being careful to avoid their eyes. I still like to do the red rimmed, Glossy Accents look on the eyes...

A little detailed coloring on the beaks finishes them off.

I also stamped the bird onto the green background piece inside the shaker, so I wouldn't have to deal with cutting out the tail and little flippy feather on his head.

I cut lots and lots of oval frames from paper and fun foam, which I staked up to create my shaker frames. I did an oval to represent an EGG, because Easter, and birds, and whatever. Get it?

I added lots of flower sequins for a bright color pop, and tucked a big yellow banner under the whole schmear.

The little white flowers were an afterthought, when I just couldn't bring myself to add even ONE more sequin. Dots of Glossy Accents make the centers.

So, yeah. SIX of these bad boys. And yes, they DO say Happy Easter inside, so they won't be used for anything else.  Good thing we have this Easter thing every year. Now all I have to do is remember them when the time comes...

Thanks so much for stopping by!

All Best--

Richard

Mr Cardmaker is a Blender (...as Opposed to a Toaster?)

So, in the struggle to keep the birthday card stash populated, I made a couple of cards using ink blending and emboss resist techniques.
I have this lovely older stamp set from Unity, and I'm not sure what its name is, but it's really adorable, and I was happy to get an excuse to use it.

I made these--

I love all my Distress Inks, and the fact that there are so many shades of just about every color out there makes me super happy. They went just beautifully over my white embossed cupcakes.
Lets just say I used ALL the inks in both the yellow and pink color families, because I am just too lazy to type out all of those names.

I did sneak in a Stampin' Up sentiment with the "happy birthday", because the font really paired well with the Baby cakes sentiment from the cupcake stamp set.
I got in and added lots of dots with my white gel pen, and added a handful of tiny pearls to push that idea along.

These were fun and easy, and great stash builders. I love them!

The yellow one went to a distant friend. I am trying really hard to work the whole #imbringingbirthdaysback thing. It seems to be more of a birthdays/hello thing for me (mostly because I have a huge glut of hello cards), but I really like being prompted to have the motivation to actually SEND some of the cards I make.
If I have your mailing address, you should probably expect something from me at some point; especially if I have your birthday handy. It all takes time...

Thanks so much for dropping by!
All Best-
Richard

Mr Cardmaker Loves His Florals and a Homemade Stencil

Wow, I am so far behind on this blog, I just spent 20 minutes writing about I card I already posted about. ARGH.

Well, now that Spring has arrived (on most days, anyway) I decided to pull out some flower stamps and dies. I LOVE my Wplus9 Fresh Cut Floral stamps and dies. The color options, the layering, I just really can relax and stamp flowers and leaves and berries to my heart's content.

I knew I wanted to do several projects, and with the dies being solid backed (which means you can't see through it to line up something you've stamped beforehand), I felt it was best to just die cut a big pile of everything, and I could decide what I wanted to create afterwards.

Well, when I was cutting all these small dies over and over, I noticed that the cardstock piece I was using was looking really kind of cool. The dies were really pretty evenly spaced, and the dies are close to being the same size, so it was just pleasing to look at. I decided that there was a future for that card stock. And indeed, there was.

So I made three or four cards with the diecuts, and I will share those another time.  I really want you to see what I did with the negative today.

Now, I did a LOVELY card with this technique, and I put it in an envelope and mailed it-- BEFORE I thought to photograph it. I HATE doing that! My favorite cards manage seem to have a similar fate, I fear. I guess I get too excited about getting them off to someone. Either that, or I have waited to the last possible second to mail something, and it's a now-or-never situation. I think it's more often the latter, if I'm honest...sigh.

Ok, so I made these--

Ok, so this first one is cute, right? I just did simple inking on the background, and that was it.
But on this one--

Ok so two things here--No, three!
1)Multiple colors, 2)Stamping the images onto the stenciled images, and 3)background ink blending.

I LOVE this look!
(My other card was much more like the second one, but with softer colors. I REALLY wish I had taken a pic or two.....)

Check them out again--

Fun, right?

I have some Christmas dies from Papertrey Ink That I am looking forward to using for some holiday cards.
Oh, but wait!

I did one more!
Speaking of Christmas, I did a weird and I mean WEIRD color choice, and made this Christmas card using the same idea--

BAM! ORANGE for Christmas Baby! So weird. I was trying to go for the "warm" in "warm holiday hugs" I guess, but this is like a juicy, sassy citrus orange. I LOVE the color, but this is just ODD for Christmas.

Oh, but yeah, you can see where I stenciled the orange and then stamped inside the image to do the background.
I also embossed my focal image and sentiment in Liquid Platinum embossing powder, and all of the watercoloring is the ONE color of orange. I made different values of color by watering it down.
Clear Wink of Stella coats the image, and I did the dots with a white gel pen.

I love trying new things! This may be a pretty old thing to the world, but it's new to me, and I will probably do it over and over until I get good and sick of it, and then forget about it for a year or so...

Do you do that? Let me know I'm not totally off my rocker, will ya? (Or that I AM, if you feel the need to...)
I'm so happy you joined me today!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
All Best-
Richard

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