Mr. Cardmaker is (Nearly) Heartless

So, weird thing-

Heart-shaped things are not my groove. Just don't feel the whole heart shape thing.
Give me a square, a circle (yes!), even a rhombus. Hearts? You can keep those, but thanks just the same.

So, it makes Valentines day sort of difficult.
I did, years ago, break down and get the triple heart punch from Stampin' Up, but I find that being without heart dies is making V-Day creativity harder and harder. I may have to suck it up and find some used dies, somewhere. Anybody overloaded with heart dies out there? Helloooooo...?

Anyway, I managed to come up with a Valentine for my Honey--

I made this--

Well, I started with a deep discount bin stamp on the background of my card base. I then sponged a scrap of the same card stock with some Picked Raspberry Distress Ink, letting it fade out at the bottom, and die cut my "love" with a Little Yellow Bicycle die.

Well, this is where I had to start being creative. I could've folded and hand cut some hearts like we did in grade school, but my little eye spied the negative of my die cut, which caused ol' Inspiration to slap me upside my head.

Stencil! Yup, yup, yup!
A sponge dauber and some more ink, and away I went, all over the background.
I was really happy I hadn't popped out the little chad things from my die cut's letters, because when the time came to mount it, I was happy it looked more like the background stencil.

So, finally, it was time to pull out that heart punch o'mine. I had this hot pink, glittered paper saved from a gift bag given to me ages ago, and it was the perfect time to make use of it. I lined a bunch of hearts up on a banner shaped piece of pink striped paper, popped that up on top of a gold foiled banner piece, and layered all of that on top of a sweet 4" doily.

Doilies must have been super cheap when I was coming through grade school, because memories of them when we made valentines sure do fill my brain. I love them on a valentine!

I popped up the die cut "love" with some foam tape, and to give it more presence, I coated it with a thick layer of Glossy Accents. I do love me some shine!

I felt like the left side of the card was a bit of a snore, so at the last second, I stamped a textured stripe, and hit it with some gold embossing powder. Because, shiny...

And there you have it!

My sweet Charlie sure did love it, as I loved the ARMLOAD of roses, both yellow and red, he brought home to me!
I'm not worthy....

I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day, and if you get the day off tomorrow for Presidents Day, enjoy it! (Go make something!)

Thanks so much for stopping by!
All Best-
Richard

Comes a Glimmer...

Well, after all the wretched photos of Christmas cards I foisted upon you, I actually have a decent photo of ONE card that I did for a shoebox swap with some very wonderful crafters at my dear friend Liz Ballard's home.

JUST ONE!

We had one person not able to come to the party, and so I had her kit left over. I assembled it, and THIS is what I made--

So, this is still not the VERY best of photos, but you can at least SEE the thing.

I like that this is sort of on the masculine side, even with glitter and rhinestones. I think the skinny red racing stripe look with the wood grain stripe is what makes me think that.

The subtle background is done with SU's Winter Wishes set, and the sentiment panel is done with SU's Cozy Christmas set. These were 2015 Stampin' Up Holiday Catalog sets, and they really blew it out of the park with stamp sets this year! LOVED the whole catalog!

I loved it so much, that I signed up to be a demo! I do this every once in a while, usually during the Sale-a-bration time that happens to be going n RIGHT NOW. I find that I moss out on much of the great Christmas stuff, because the Holiday catalog tends to be gone by then, but the deal is amazing!

The Occasions catalog is out now, as is the Annual catalog.
The big thing right now, though is the Sale-a-bration brochure, which has FREE stuff that you can choose from for every $50.00 dollars you spend.
NOW is the time to sign up for Stampin' Up, too, because new recruits get $155.00 of product for $99.00,with no shipping! (That's an extra $30.00!!)
I think that's an amazing deal.

Anyway, if you get a moment to browse these catalogs, and you find you can't possibly live without something, I would be SO pleased to help get these things into your crafty little hands. You can email me (link in profile), or go through the website and list me as your demonstrator. That's me, Richard Breaks in Westborough, MA.
No pressure; just want to be available for you.

Anyway, just wanted to share my card, really.
Hope you like it.

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

Christmas Card Recap, Part Two

So, continuing on a theme, I have more Christmas cards today. You were all so great to hang with me and my last (bad photo) photo-heavy post, and I hope you have the strength to do it again.

Getting on with it--

I made this-

Playing around with some older dies here. My favorite part of this one is the embossed stamping on the ornament die cut. Can you make out the cabin in the background? Kinda tough to see, really (I had to point it out to Charlie, who had it in his hands), but I love it. The rest of the card is okay. This was definitely an early trial...

Next--

Okay, so this is the stamp that the cabin came from. Can you see it on the other card now? Anyway, TONS of fun sponging this guy, and the inside is even better--

I just LOVE this for some reason. Maybe the red lettering?

Anyway, I liked it so much, I made these--

I really liked these.

So, in a totally different vein, I decided to try some water coloring techniques, and I came up with these--

I love pink at Christmas, especially with gold. These were fun, but I am slow with them. They need LOTS of drying time!

The next few were fun, fast, and easily reproduced.

 I like the two different red papers used to make these deer.

I mish-mashed up all kinds of things on these, but I really love Julie Ebersole's Christmas sets from Ellen Hutson, and cutting the sentiments into little pieces like that made me smile. And, foil paper, because shiny.

Moving along, I liked this one where I played around with repetitive stamping--

And, to literally wrap this up, these two, that were inspired by a Kristina Werner card from a few years ago--

I thought they were kind of silly, really, but my champion Charlie loved them, so...

ANYWAY--

Okay, I was going to do one more post with the last couple of cards, but I'm just going to add them.

These are the Hanukkah cards--

 I love white pigment ink on dark card stock!

Home, community, world religions, candles, winter parties...Get it?

Next year, I will need at least six Hanukkah cards, so my designs will have to expand greatly. I have just a few stamps for this, so creativity will be key!

AND FINALLY--

The thank you cards looked like this--

I love this Winter Wishes stamp set from Stampin' Up! The sentiment is from Another Thank You, also SU.

Okay, so, again, so sorry for the lousy photos; its what I get for waiting until the VERY last second to take pics. Some cards weren't worth showing here, which is sucky for me, because the cards themselves were pretty nice.
Oh, well, there's always next year...

And, hopefully, I'll post before then!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
All Best-
Richard

Death by Red

Well, not my death, though you'd have been wondering; it's been so long since I ventured into Blogland.

I don't blame you for wondering.

Well, Christmas came and went, and so did the cards and things that come with it. I made  record (for me) 80+ cards this year! Some of them were pretty darn good; I was happy, overall.

HOWEVER--


I realized at the LAST possible moment before needing to mail everything that I hadn't photographed ANY cards!
I really like to have a record of them all, even if I don't blog about them. It is really nice to see creative progress, as well as maybe revisiting an old idea that you think you can make better, or even just make MORE of.
Anyway...I grabbed my camera, and hunted for a spot in our new home to take some photos.
Yeah.
That.
Well, long story short, I ended up with a corner with weird lighting and a RED tablecloth as a background.
BAD IDEA. So bad...For whatever, reason, the red background really messed up everything, from focus to saturation...weird and terrible.

Anyway, I have a few cards to share, and away we go.
I made these--

This card was based on an idea I saw somewhere online, and I apologize for not remembering the source. Maybe Kristina Werner? I always like red on white, not just for Christmas, so this little group of every tiny Christmas stamp I own was lots of fun to make. I made a small bunch of these.

This idea actually came out of this card (or is it the other way round?)

I like the glow effect from sponging over the images a bit. And glitter pen is always nice, too!

I made a BIG group of cards I could sort of pump out quickly. They looked like this--

A close-up--

And the one I salvaged after smearing the heck out of the bottom of it--

Not a bad save, right?

Another small group of cards, using Lawn Fawn and Wplus9 stamps and dies with some Tim Holtz dies--

I love that green stripe paper, and adding that small bit of ink blending behind the sentiment (Papertrey Ink) piece really gives that simple oval some real presence. I just LOVE those greenery dies.

And, finally (for now)--

ARGH! BLURRY!!!

MORE blur--

I absolutely love this idea, using a die cut popped up in the middle of a sentiment. I think these some of my favorites. I am sad I don't have a good close-up of these, but you can get a good idea from the group photo.

I will be back soon with more, I promise!

Hope you had a wonderful holiday, whatever wonderful means to you during that time!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
All Best-
Richard