Danny's Cards Blog

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...

Just over a month ago Cricut released the Cricut Mug Press. At first, the mug press seems potentially baffling: a heat transfer system that can make mug designs. But after just a month with my mug press, I'm obsessed. Unlike the Cricut Joy which took a few months for me to figure out why it was worthy of a purchased, the mug press immediately makes sense. But what makes it special? What does it do different? Let's find out. Going Beyond Vinyl If you own a Cricut, your probably no stranger to vinyl. I've put it on everything from wooden signs, to glassware, to mugs and even made a chess board and chess pieces. Vinyl is it's own level of fascinating. But vinyl is also tricky. It is often a multi-step process with weeding, transfer paper and a lot of crossed fingers and deep breathing. And none of that vinyl is machine washable. Mugs and glassware must all be hand-washed unless you want your beautiful designs to quickly become botched. But the Cricut Mug Press changes the ...

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...

Over on AAA Birthday , the challenge set forth is one of my favorite challenges. Making cards in a shape. While I don't do this too often, there's no doubt that cards that are not conventionally shaped are always eye catching. Here is the full challenge: Just this week I acquired my all new Anna Griffin Hot Air Balloon Easel die , so I quickly got to work. When the card is laying flat, it looks like this: But with the card unfolding, it suddenly pops up and looks like this: What I love is that easel cards or individual shaped cards can often take forever to make. Not these, which clocked in around the 45 minute mark. Using vibrant colors, it really gave that Hot Air Balloon feel. What the camera doesn't capture is the gold diamonds I placed in between the top section. Those gold glimmery sections also give this card another dimension. And because I can never make one of anything, here's another with a totally different color combination. I used the rainbow cutouts from ...

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 Anna Griffin, she recently released her Baby Icon Cut and Emboss Folders . Baby cards are often the hardest items for me to keep in stock. They're often my biggest sellers at trade shows, and as someone in their 30s, I know so many people having little ones. So I went to work. I really didn't know where to begin my day, so I started with creating a whole slew of sentiments. I often struggle with what a baby card should say, but Best Wishes kind of covers all the bases. But that didn't really help with inspiration. I went looking for Sketch Challenges. The first challenge comes courtesy of Sketch Saturday :  And here was my result: Using an assortment of pattern papers, I was really happy with the result. I ended up using the horsey cut so that the little mustache could peek through. Over on Try Stampin' on Tuesday , they're up to their milestone 500th sketch. Here was the sketch: And here was my creation based on that: I was thrilled with this result. It fe...

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...