Danny's Cards Blog

I mentioned yesterday in my Koala Cards post that I had a huge win with an abundance of clearance stamps at Hobby Lobby. These stamps come from Tracey Hey , but my Hobby Lobby had them for a mere $2.49! Anyway, I was super excited by these pretty big stamps, but I knew the tactic had to be different as A2 size would be too small for these huge stamps. I made these cards for two distinct challenges. Over on Making the Cards they had this sketch challenge: And here's my interpretation of that challenge: I've never really done this type of coloring before where you don't color the whole image, and it wasn't until assembly that I ended up happy with how it looked. All cards were colored using Copic Markers. For the second card, I went with Sweet Sketch Wednesday's sketch challenge.  I don't make too many square cards so it was nice to be challenged in a different way. I went into my scrap box and used an assortment of circle scraps to complete the sketch: In my f

My local Hobby Lobby had a blowout sale on a number of stamps, and I loaded up (which means tons of inspiration for the next few weeks). I was excited about these koala stamps thatwere so charming from first sight. The stamps come from Art Impressions , but my Hobby Lobby had these marked down on clearance for $3.49. I made these koala cards for two distinct challenges. Let's take a look. The first challenge is courtesy of The Color Throwdown blog. Here were the colors they wanted makers to use: And here's what I did with the red, blue, green and grey. I used Copic Markers to color in the koala. The background is a basic cuttlebug brand emboss folder. For my second card, I used Paper Craft Crew's sketch. I used the exact same stamp, but without color restrictions, I made a far more eclectic card. Here's the sketch: And here's the card I made based on the sketch: Using 3D Dot adhesives, this card ended up with a lot of dimension. Here's another view of the card

Over on the Just Us Girls challenge blog , the task this week was quite monochromatic. Let's take a look at the challenge: I can't say that I've ever worked with just black and white for a card. While no doubt I probably inadvertently made a card with this scheme, I can't say I've gone out of my way to enhance only black and white (I know I've definitely grey scaled before).  It was my dear friend Melinda's birthday. For her birthday I made her and her husband Mah Jongg t-shirts using HTV. I was thrilled with the results: Melinda is the kind of person who loves handmade cards, so I went into this challenge with her in mind. I also have recently fallen in love with Z fold cards (see my vintage masculine Z-Card here ). I pulled out my Sizzix Circle Thinlits and my Recollections Black and White Paper and got to work. Here are the results: So the interesting thing with a Z-fold card is how it unfolds in so many dimensions. Here is the front and back layer. Her

While perusing Facebook, I saw a post today that caught my eye. The only Facebook card groups I am still apart of are JOANN Loves Papercrafters and a handful of Melody Lane and Cricut groups. The Anna Griffin Facebook groups are too filled with toxicity from the various mods. Today on Joann's, Anthony M showcased a fantastic blending technique with a bricks embossing folder using Distress Oxide. You can watch his full tutorial here .  Blending always looked like next level work. It's something I've avoided for about five years since I started my papercrafting journey. Today, thanks to Anthony, I took the plunge and invested in some distress oxides and an assortment of blending brushes. I used a variety of colors but the main stamp and die set I used were Tim Holtz's Cat Chat . All the coloring of the stamps were done with Copic Markers. I made four cards and assembled them after an assortment of sketches found on a variety of blogs. So without further ado: The simple sk

Over on AAA Cards , they had a unique challenge that I've not really seen from a clean and simple challenge. Let's take a look: So I went in knowing I had to cover two quarters of the card. It could be any quarters, but I wanted to use an emboss folder for one of the quarters. That's no small feat as those folders often are meant to take up a large portion of space. But with a little careful spacing, I managed.  I used these Hampton Art stamps . I couldn't tell if it was because I just re-inked my pads or if it was the stamps themselves, but I really struggled to get a clean stamp from these. I had to go over them with Copic black markers to fully color in the image. I often find that's the case with stamps that go with full black over letting you color them. Here's the card I'm submitting to the challenge: But I also made two others: I can't say that the cards have super wow factor, but they look clean and simple, which is really all I was going for her

Over on the Tic Tac Toe Challenge Blog , they offered a wonderful board this week that really got the creative ideas flowing. Let's take a look: As soon as I saw square, I knew I wanted to make a Z Card. I just learned how to make these cards the other day, and I was excited to implement the technique without the assistance of premade cards. I went into my cardstock collection and found a Recollections pack that was all set to a woodlands theme, from there, the rest sort of fell into place. I went right along the bottom with yellow, square and texture. I used an assortment of different embellishments from Anna Griffin's Die Cuts for Him . For yellow and texture and die cut and embossed using Anna Griffin's All Square Cut and Emboss Dies . If you don't know how to make a Z fold, it's really simple. You take two square cards (11in x 5.5in) and score at the 5.5in mark on both and on one of them you score at 2.75in. You glue them together and voila! Here's another p

In most exciting card dies of the year, Anna Griffin released her slimline pop-up card. These cards take the idea of a slimline, plant them sideways and offer a pop-up akin to an easel card. Good luck on trying to get the Carriage Slimline cards ; currently Anna Griffin's website does not sell them and over on HSN they sold out the day before they were officially released.  Thankfully, I was lucky enough to get them. I just didn't quite have the inspiration to use them. I'm happy to report that  Color My Heart Color Dare offered the perfect palette to get my ideas in motion. In terms of color challenges, this was wholly unique: I knew immediately that purple and yellow would make the perfect color combination. Playing on yellow, I used a fair amount of gold as well. So here's the result: I'm happy to report the card dies are super easy to use. I did end up cutting a second round of a carriage so that the horse and the carriage weren't only one color.  I'm n

Sometimes you make a card, and then you think the link party ended and you're like, "okay, I'm going to restructure this and turn it into a sketch challenge," and then you realize that not only was the first challenge still having its link party, but so is the second challenge. This is a long way of saying, this card is made for two challenges. I originally thought the link party ended at CAS Colours & Sketches ... turns out I was wrong. Their challenge was to use the following colors: Then, over on Try Stampin' on Tuesday they gave us this wonderful sketch: I mentioned yesterday that I purchased a random donation box from Stampin' Up. In it was this  Brutus Monroe  stamp set. I used the stamp from that and pulled out my Copic Coloring markers. And here's the end result: Overall, I'm really happy with the design. I don't make a ton of horizontal A2 cards, so that was nice from a visual standpoint. So a 2-for-1, which is not something I normal

Over on Tuesday Morning Sketches , they had one of the most fun sketches I've done in a while. Let's take a look: What I loved was the sort of parallelism that occurred between the semicircles. I recently acquired a stamp set from Brutus Monroe out of a random box I purchased from Stampin' Up. I'm completely unfamiliar with Brutus Monroe products, but after stamping with these, I'm a huge fan. They stamp clean and easy, and all the details pop evenly. I settled on the owl as a center piece. From there I thought about a tree bark background, and then I embossed a circle with leaves. I used a foil leaf background to offset the tree, and voila, here's my end result: I used an assortment of Copic Markers to color in the owl. I even did a little bit of shading around the owl's forehead, his arms and his belly. Overall, I'm thrilled with how he came out. If you enjoy what you see, be sure to hit the SUBSCRIBE button at the top to see new posts. Please follow

I recently acquired Anna Griffin's 3D Fantastic Fans dies . I was excited to get these dies because it takes the traditional flat fans and reenvisions them with more dimension.  The dies require a little more finagling than you would think. Because they pop out, you're going to need a powerful glue or lots of 3D adhesive dots to make this work.  Using these dies, I looked at an assortment of challenges that I could utilize for inspiration. Over on Time Out Challenges, they wanted us to use a quote to help make a card come to life. So for my first card I wanted to use each of the pieces of the fan. I've had this vintage paper with a rose for the better part of four years when I first got into card making; I then pulled out my new metallic rose paper and paired it with this vintage paper. I then added in the "For My Friend" sentiment from Anna Griffin's Wild Flower box. For my second card, I used Color My Heart Color Dare challenge . The inspiration photo was