Danny's Cards Blog

I'm working on a whole slew of Halloween and Fall cards as my card show is around the corner (September 26th). I've never done a card show during the Halloween and Fall season so it will be interesting to see how it plays out. Anyway, I was in need of inspiration and Color My Heart Color Dare Challenge Blog had the perfect colors to get me going. The colors to work with were white, black and gold. Perfect! I recently acquired my Anna Griffin Scaredy Cat dies . Currently, they're only available on HSN, but I will also note to other Griffinites looking for that Halloween spirit that she dropped her Halloween Cut and Emboss Folders on her website just this week. Anyway, on with the show. The card I'm submitting I'm super proud of--let's take a look: I used a black and white feathered background to give a spooky appeal. Then I used an assortment of different black white and golds for the desired effect. The gold is extremely reflective so you can see my shadow of ...

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...

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...

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 ...

Another day, another acknowledgement. While there wasn't a ton of competition, my Bendy Card was a top pick over on Try Stampin' on Tuesday . Another win! Anyway, onto today's post. If you're anything like me, when you're making a card you stamp out and cut out a whole bunch of extra pieces. This happens a lot with me because I'm not the best stamper in the world. Depending on the brand of stamps, some are more prone to smudging or uneven stamping, and other times my technique falters and the stamp just looks terrible.  In any case, I showcased my Ladybug card just a few days ago, but I stamped so many different elements, I couldn't help but go back and make a few more ladybug cards. When I stumbled upon Inkspirational's spots and dots challenge , I knew I could have a lot of fun with these stamps again. So let's take a look at the challenge: What I did for the card to make the spots of the ladybug pop out was twofold. First, I found a dotted embos...

Over on TIME OUT Challenges , the theme of the week was HUNGRY. I actually felt a bit stumped on what to do with this. I pulled out all my food stamps and food embellishments. I actually purchased a Bakery and Kitchen themed embossing folder, and with that, this became my focus. So here's the challenge: So this is the Cuttlebug Embossing Folders I used. And this is the, now out of print, Lori Whilock Stamp Set I used. I actually got this stamping set on clearance when my local AC Moore closed. It was the first time using both these sets. So I made two versions of the card. So wihout further ado: I colored the stamps with Copic markers and used 3D adhesive to give them a bit dimension. For this card, I kept the three elements fairly close together. One thing I've always struggled with is Copic Coloring. They're such fancy markers, but I never feel I do them justice. I ended up watching a tutorial by Mary Doodles that helped me out immensely.  And here's the second car...

Over on the Here Is a Place to Start blog, they offered up a unique Create Your Own Challenge . I'm familiar with many Tic-Tac-Toe boards, but there is even more flexibility in this challenge. Let's take a look at the challenge and what I ended up using: At work, one of my dear coworkers is abandoning me (author and coffee aficionado of NYC Undergrounds ) So I wanted to make her a Wishing You All the Best card. She's also going to travel the world, so I used some mixed media paper I acquired which has postcards layered. I also cut and embossed a 3D embellishment from Anna Griffin's Anniversary Frame Dies . Here were the two cards I ended up making: Very simple cards, but happy how they came out. If you enjoy what you see, be sure to hit the SUBSCRIBE button at the top to see new posts. Please follow me on Instagram  @DannysCards ; you can now also find me on  Facebook . Thank you so much for reading! UPDATE: This card was selected by Here is a Place to Start  as a Ris...

This week I combined the Happy Little Stampers  and the Inkspirational Challenge , the challenge from Happy Little Stampers was "Anything Goes with Dies" and on Inkspirational it was Slimeline Cards. These are my favorite challenges because I get to utilize different dies and revisit dies I haven't used in forever. Here were the challenge titles: I ended up using my Anna Griffin Slimline Concentric Dies for the very first time. I love making Slimline cards. The large shape make them look so elegant, so I was excited to get to work with this. I created two cards, largely the same but with a different sentiment in the center. Here they are: For the first card, I utilized a simple sentiment of "wishing you good luck." I think the square offset it nicely. I used 3D adhesive dots to really give the center a nice dimension. As for the center card, it was nearly identical. The only difference is the sentiment in the center which is circular which helps make the ovals ...