hard to believe...

...we're already headed into the last full week of ICAD. where has july gone, eh?! meanwhile, here are my tiny index card masterpieces from the past week:

day 47: love

in this case i used the day's prompt as an excuse to include all the ingredients i LOVE to use in a collage: a tiny auto from "illustrated motorcars of the world", several varieties of ledger paper, my favorite ken oliver flower mandala stamp, and loads of ancient, imperfect rub-on transfers!

day 48

my found text (in english and french) reads, "and the fish, his name is leblanc" which pretty much sums up everything we need to know about this one!

day 49: 

a one-staple collage of random yellow things. because at 10:30pm that's how scientific my process is, lol. actually, that's often how my process is, regardless of time. in a way, it's based on an actual art principle: the designs we instinctively like have some sort of unifying factor. in this case, it's color. 

day 50

super, SUPER loose colorburst florals, painted "wet into wet" so that the shades blend and bleed into each other. with pitt artist pen outlines, applied after the card was thoroughly dry.

day51: mint

a collage which embodies the day's prompt in a way that makes sense! woohoo!!!

(incorporating, and pictured atop, a whole entire box of vintage slidemounts that my aunt judie gave me, do i even have to mention how much i looooooooooove them?!)

day 52: postage

another vintage ingredient i love, that's easy and inexpensive to collect: old stamps. again, i composed the background more or less by color. 

day 53: mandala monday

ledger paper, graph paper, notebook paper, text paper... i love paper... 

have i mentioned that recently??! :)

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i love mandala monday, also, and i hope yours is a particularly good one!

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still bundling over here

we're still making "all bundled up" cards at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ by which we mean cards with three or more layers. here's what i made this week:

patterned paper and bird image: craft and you design; plaid paper: graphic 45; lace and sheet music from my stash; ink: prima; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, sewing machine

i love layers, generally and torn layers, in particular. in this case i've combined the fronts and backs of two of my favorite papers in the "silent night" collection from craft and you design and used a round icon from the same set as my focal point. i can rarely resist a bit of vintage sheet music and some old lace... so i didn't even try to leave them out!

stephanie also has a beautiful bundle of awesomeness to show you. why not head on over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and check that out right now, darlings?

What's Brewing?

Generally, at my house "What's Brewing" is coffee or tea, but it occurred to me the other day when I saw that sentiment in our Coffee Stamp set, that *beer* is also brewed. You may know that Beer Brads and a coordinating set of Beer Stamps were part of the newest release in May. But it's entirely possible to use the former without the latter, so of course I had to make a couple of cards to celebrate!

My first card could not be more simple: Beer Brads and the "brewing" sentiment inside a label shape, on a great coordinating piece of ledger style paper, and a few coordinating washi tapes (Love Tape and this fab Skinny Plaid that I adore) are really all you need!

I confess that I have been wanting this Pizza Tape since I first saw it, but held out because I honestly wasn't sure what to do with it. Once I saw the Beer Brads, however, it seemed like a match made in heaven. The "Everything I Brew..." sentiment is also from the Coffee Stamp set, but again, it multitasks really well here. I set off the sentiment panel with some teeeeeeeny but truly useful 1/16" Mini Round Brads in the corners.

I hope you'll be inspired to think of alternate ways to use your own EO Clear Stamps, and that you'll brew up some creative cards of your own.

xmas in july

this week's challenge at shopping our stash is that old seasonal favorite, "xmas in july". this is one of those things that people have strong feelings about. some folks hate making holiday cards out of season and refuse to haul out the appropriate supplies until sweater weather has arrived. and some --a crafty friend recently referred to us as "crazy people" lol-- are partners in a blog like ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ with their craft bestie, and make one card every single week to be *done* with xmas cards by december first. it takes all sorts, right?

i've been trying to emphasize the "stash" part of SOS lately, so i dug deep to find some ancient items. these ki memories chipboard letters must be at least ten years old. i'd be embarrassed about that except: i still really like them! i think the reason they've gone unused is that they're on the large side for cardmaking... even for ME, lol! but as soon as i saw them i was determined to build my card around them. by virtue of constructing an A7 card, choosing a short word, and strategically overlapping the "m" i think i made it work. bonus points for finding (in my xmas scraps folder) some little strips of paper from the same collection, as well as a bit of "love elsie" goodness and a tiny piece of sei pink that i fell in love with when my nieces were little! the felt bird is slightly younger than the rest, but not by much... he's a basic grey dimensional felt sticker, from that year when felt was The Big Thing! ;)

there are many other inspiration projects, featuring "classic" products, on the SOS blog. you should really stop by and see what my design team darlings have been up to! ♥

index cards for everybody!!!

this summer could be subtitled, "more ICADs, less prompts" lol. i don't think there's ever been a year when i've so seldom worked with the themes that tammy g generously develops for us. it's not that i haven't liked them, i just seem to keep having ideas that are burning a hole in my brain, creatively. i *guess* that's a good thing, right?

day 40

another attempt at a collage adhered with washi tape. my favorite version so far, and much the closest to the idea i was going for... but still not quite exactly IT...

day 41

inspired by my friend susan's tiny, amazing, painted floral ICADs i had a go with colorburst, on a nice strong tabbed divider card. i forced myself NOT to outline... 

(but yeah: i still want to go back with a fine point pen and outline!)

day 42

a one-staple collage i really like!

day 43

i've been fascinated with mosaics lately. as in, "i'd love to take a tile mosaic class" but meanwhile, i think i'll play with bits of colorbursted watercolor paper. this is my first attempt to make a mosaic pretty similar in technique to the way you'd actually do it with tile. i think i might be cured, lol. it's just. sooooooooo. fiddly. ack. 

 day 44

collage cut-out flower with doodled leaves? yes, please!

day 45

i sat down with my colorbursts thinking, "abstract florals". well, i was half right!

day 46: mandala monday

i didn't set out to draw a peacock mandala, it just sort of happened, and i'm fine with that.

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have an excellent day and KEEP COOL, darlings!

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all bundled up? in JULY??!

ok, yes, it's a bit of a counter-intuitive theme this fortnight at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ but bear with me while i explain that when we say, "all bundled up" we're actually looking for holiday cards with *LAYERS*... three or more layers, to be specific. that's do-able, right? even if where you live it's too hot for anything but shorts and a t-shirt! here's what i made:

poinsettia panel made with colorburst and poinsettia stamps by ken oliver crafts, plus some wendy vecchi and impression obsession cover stamps added lightly in the background; ink: versamark; embossing powders: wow; gems: eyelet outlet; rub-on sentiment: making memories; patterned paper: daisy d's, craft and you design, graphic 45; glossy white cardstock: the paper cut; distressing tool: tonic; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, sewing machine

ok, so, everyone knows that using lots of layers isn't much of a challenge for me, lol. but in this case i've got four layers of paper and still come out with a flat card, which i'm kind of psyched about! in addition my poinsettia centerpiece kind of has a few layers of it's own: its got colorburst, then background pattern stamps, then embossed poinsettia stamps, and finally a rub-on transfer sentiment and a few gem centers!

stephanie also has a gorgeous "bundled up" creation to show you, why not hop over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and check that out before planning your own layery masterpiece!

What's Better...

...than that first cup of coffee in the morning? Ok actually that’s a trick question, because there’s really NOTHING better than that, is there? But cards made with Eyelet Outlet Coffee Stamps and Coffee Brads come pretty close. See?

I love that our stamp sets were created especially to work with our brads, but they also have brilliant sentiments that stand alone AND some fun images as well. For this card I used the little coffee bean stamp to create my own custom patterned paper, then used a brown Tombow Dualbrush pen and a waterbrush to color them in a watercolory style. Then I used some clever dies from Stephanie Barnard to construct the coffee cup, whose carrier band is made from our gorgeous henna-inspired Wide Flower Washi. I embellished with a few Paper Flowers, added my favorite sentiment in the Coffee Stamps set, and called it good to go!

I hope you'll be inspired to think about making your own patterned paper with your favorite EO Clear Stamps. But first... why not help yourself to just one more cup of coffee... :)