Danny's Cards Blog

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...

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...

In some great news, I was the featured creator on Making the Cards for challenge #25. Be sure to check out their site for some great inspiration and feel free to leave comments on their blog acknowledging some fantastic work! Over on AAA Cards , they had a challenge of Along the Edge. This means making a nice Clean and Simple card with the edge used as a way to enhance the overall look of the card. Here's the challenge in question: The optional twist had me utilizing Dry Embossing. I have a ton of embossing folders so I knew this would be a perfect challenge for me.  The card I'm submitting to the challenge is this bee card. I was inspired by the various bug cards I've been making and this hive like embossing folder I owned. This stamp came from Jillibean . Here's the result: I loved the way the card looked so much with the edge embossed and the stamp off to the side, that I ended up making a few more. The follow cards use Sweet Kawaii Design stamps: And here's th...

Over on CASology , the word of the day revolved around comfort. While I love all the many fanciful layers that my Anna Griffin cards provide, something about a clean and simple design often comes off more eye catching. Here is the cue card: I don't do a ton of Clean and Simple. That said, when I do, I usually sift through my stamps and pull out my copic markers, which is exactly what I did. This was the Hero Arts stamp se t I ended up using: When I saw the stamps, it was as if each parent of the animal was providing comfort to the little one. It was the perfect set of parents to children cards, which you so rarely see.  I actually had a couple of issues with the stamping process, so I pulled out my black pen and filled in any areas that didn't come out correct. Anyway, here were the three cards I ended up making: I'm neither the best stamper nor the best colorer, but overall, I'm happy with these cards. I posted them to Facebook just yesterday and the elephant card imm...

This week over on the CAS[E] this Sketch! Blog  they offered a clean and simple sketch that was a pure delight. As those around here know, CAS cards are not really my specialty. I spend much more time with layers upon layers; nevertheless, this allowed me to go to the basics and get some simple Christmas Cards done. The sketch was as follows: I really wanted to stay true to the blocking of the sketch. Ultimately, I created four variations on the sketch design. My first card leaned into the sketch as shown. I used some holiday scraps to give the design a little pop. My second card used the same scraps, but with a different stamp sentiment. This is the second time this week I've used this Truck Recollections stamp, but I really can't get enough of it. Something about the truck and plaid played really nicely together. I then went for the green variations: Really the exact same set up in green. And here was the fourth variation: In the background you can see my gorgeous new rainbo...

Here at DannysCards.com, I am not known for my clean and simple designs. Most of my designs usually fiddle with more pieces than I can imagine, mixing mediums and layering. But this week AAA Cards offered a unique challenge: One layer and coffee -- which reminded me, I knew I had a coffee card stamp set I've never used before. I also went through some other stamps and found a latte cup sketch stamp. Earlier this year (around May), I invested in a ton of Copic markers. I've yet to find my purchase worthwhile until this AAA Cards blog challenge. It really allowed me to color in new and dynamic ways.  For my first submission, I worked on this stamp from Tim Holtz . I've only ever used this card in conjunction with its accompanying emboss folder, so it was nice to see it stand alone. For my second card (non-submission), I took the same stamp and colored it. But I decided to speckle around it to give a little more depth. For the next round of cards, I used a stamp set from Jill...