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 ...

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...

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...

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 ...

Update: This card was picked as Cupcake Inspirations Sweet Pick! Over on Cupcake Inspirations , the designers gave us a color challenge. As you may have seen from my last few posts, I'm obsessed with my Cricut Maker 3, so any new cards I've been making have been reliant on my new piece of hardware. The color challenge was as follows: I've sort of been on an animal kick. Something about the layering of animals with cardstock to create dimension always looks good to me. I talked about in my last post how I wanted to make an owl card but ultimately went with a llama instead. Today I got to live out my owl fantasy. I found an owl on Cricut Design Space but changed the colors to fit the challenge. I also wanted this to be way bigger than the tiny Twinchie card from yesterday . Here was the result: A simple but very effective card. What I love about this card is it's an "I love you" card with a much younger aesthetic. I could see giving this to a niece or nephew, j...

I recently just finished my bodybuilding experience, so I finally found some time for cards. I recently acquired Anna Griffin's Rocking Card Dies , but I really didn't know what to make with them. Inspiration struck when I found TGIF Challenges: Color Challenge . This week's color challenge was as follows: I loved the simplicity of the color scheme. I didn't quite know how the set would come out, but a hope and a prayer later, I ended up with two cards. The good news: The Rocking Card Dies are easy to use. Each card takes about 30-45 minutes to complete. A few quick passes, and assembly is a cinch. I do worry about longevity. On the second card, the weight seemed to be a bit more and it appeared as if the card was deflating a little. Not enough to ruin the effect, but I do wonder how the card will stand up over time. Still, it's such an interesting design, that I can't be upset with it. So here are the results: All the details really pop. This card was fairly li...

Hey crafters! It's been a minute. My craftspiration has been low, but in truth, I've also been busy on a few projects. I'm working on a teaching blog series, dedicating more times towards playing video games and enjoying the nicer weather. So the crafting is on the back seat.  That said, yesterday I found a bit of time with myself, so I got to use some of the new items I acquired. The Just Us Girls Challenge group posted this beautiful color combo this Saturday. The color combo was as follows: The colors definitely showcased a spring vibe to me. Which was perfect because I just acquire my Birdhouse Easel Card Dies from Anna Griffin. I compiled my paper and went to work. Here were the results: The card and the embossing actually didn't take a particularly long time. What gave me a heart attack was when I went to apply the purple house to the purple cardstock. That was a complete accident! I meant to apply the purple colored house to the blue backing. I was devastated b...

Over on Cupcake Inspirations , they showcased three colors to use as a source of inspiration. They were giving major honeycomb vibes with this set of colors: For some reason, the yellow, brown and black really felt masculine to me. Like many cardmakers, I struggled with masculine cards, but recently I acquired Anna Griffin's Calligraphic Sentiment dies . I thought these dies, would really help make the colors pop. Slimline was on the dock for today, and so here is what I made: Everything about this made me happy. I background emboss folder really help give it that masculine edge. To give it just a little more texture, I also added four black dots at each corner. Super thrilled with the results.  My less successful attempt followed: While it still looked good, I was less thrilled with how flimsy the paper felt after going through with the emboss paper. If I decide to go with this flower paisley folder again, I'm going to need to back it up with even more 3D dot adhesives. Defini...

Over on the Festive Friday Papercraft Challenge Blog , they're aware that April 2nd marks World Autism Day. To mark the occasion, they came up with an inspiration list to help us think about that day: I ended up making two cards based on the inspo list. A while back, I found a set of Autism Awareness washi tape. I had yet to use it, and I couldn't think of a more apropos time to use it. I implemented a technique that I never did before with washi tape. I ended up making a square of washi tape and then used a die cut on the washi tape so that the image cut out as if it was a patterned paper. Usually when I'm using washi tape and a die cut, it's used solely for a mirror effect. This gave a depth to the card that I was really happy with. Here you can see the jigsaws, rainbow, and bright colors in full order. Here was the first result: I used 3D dot adhesives to give the heart a little dimension. Here you can see it from a different angle: I then did the same thing with a f...