rollin' rollin' rollin'

i've been catching up on my altered rolodex swaps for the junk journal junkies group at paper anthology. here are my two most recent sets:

july's prompt was "use a stencil" and luckily, i have quite a few of those! ;) in this case i chose my beloved donna downey poppies. since i was working on samples for an upcoming gel printing class this particular week, my background uses a couple of techniques i'd like to incorporate in the class, including a horizontal ombre blend and printing the stencil twice with slightly different paint colors to get a sort of shadow effect. 

to finish off the card bases, i added a bunch of grungy overstamping to the backgrounds of the cards. arguably too much, lol; i actually liked the cards better one step before the final version. but there's no crying in baseball and there's no "do-overs" on optional swap projects, so i just rolled with it. my sentiment is composed of diecut letters using impression obsession's typewriter lower case set on scraps of glossy white cardstock.

my top layer of poppies are diecuts, painted with colorburst, in a mixture of mostly fuchsia with a bit of marsala, to approximate the same shade as the quinacridone magenta acrylic paint i used on the gel prints. the stems are chartreuse with a tiny touch of terre verte. here's a great tip for watercoloring flimsy or tiny items, like my memory box "row of poppies" die, with it's skinny skinny flower stems. cut them from nice sturdy watercolor paper, then DON'T remove the excess paper until AFTER your flowers are dry! this gives you a much sturdier base on which to work and helps prevent some of the warping.

june's prompt was a color palette of sage green, pink and grey. i dusted off my alte new rose flurries die set and used up nearly all my red and pink cardstock scraps to assemble the layers and layers that make these flowers look so beautifully dimensional. 

my background is a literal patchwork of grey and silver patterned paper scraps cut into strips and pieced together in a sort of funky herringbone pattern. i did a post last year which explains the process in more detail and it is right here, should you need it. the only thing that's a tiny bit different with the rolos is that i assembled my herrings and then diecut the cards, since this saved a lot of tedious trimming up at the end.

i hope the weekend is treating you well and that you will be able to sneak in some creative time! ♥

tag! you're it!

we've got a fun little twist this fortnight at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥: we're making holiday tags, with a couple of options. you can make a freestanding tag to use on a gift OR you can incorporate a tag into your card design. i chose the first option, though i would not rule out the possibility that my tags might, at some later date, get attached to a folded card base, in the event i run a little short in december, lol.

patterned paper, florals, pearl flourishes and tiny vellum butterflies: prima marketing; large shipping tags, sheet music and doilies: from my stash; wooden snowflakes of unknown origin; seam binding: paper anthology; jingle bells die: memory box; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, glue dots, nuvo deluxe adhesive

i started with a couple of oversized manilla shipping tags and went just sliiiiiiightly crazy with shabby chic embellishments. the patterned paper is from prima's "christmas in the country" collection, and i've paired it with my two all-time favorite stash items: vintage sheet music and doilies.

most of my florals are from prima's "spring farmhouse" collection, but there are some others mixed in as well. the tiny vellum butterflies are a bit older, and i suppose not very xmassy, lol, but they were exactly the right colors. i have had the wooden snowflakes for AGES. the main reason being that i never felt confident enough about any adhesive for attaching them; but since i've discovered nuvo deluxe, luckily that is no longer a problem!

hop over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ to see stephanie's beautiful creation and start thinking what YOU will make, because TAG! you're it!

Just For *EWE*!

WARNING: the diabolical pun level of this post is VERY HIGH; pun-haters look away now!

I have a pair of extra-punny cards today, featuring our adorable Sheep Brads and a few other cool Eyelet Outlet goodies!

Last week I posted some Llama Brad cards that were inspired by a pair of novelty socks. Continuing in that same vein, my first Sheep Brad card was inspired by this cute pouch my sister gave me. (Because yes, there does seem to be a Pun Gene, and our family definitely has it!!!) :)

My first thought (of course!) was, "Hey! We have Sheep Brads AND Eye Glass Brads!!!" so obviously I had to use both. I created the sentiment with a mixture of stamps (spectac and lar) and alphabet stickers. My original idea for the card did not involve Star Brads, and would have had the specs right next to "you're". But because the Eye Glass Brads are open at the center, they have their prongs off at the edges, and actually need two small holes, and I didn't punch the holes precisely enough. Of course I could have started over, but at times like these, I will usually try to come up with a fix. In this case, it was to move the glasses up, and place a white star over the resultant holes; then add a couple more stars to make the placement seem more intentional. In the end, I think they look really good, and if I was going to make a second card like this, I'd plan on stars from the beginning!

The thing about puns is, it's hard to stop at just one, lol. So while I was making the "Spectac-EWE-lar" card, I kept thinking of other words with "EWE" in them. One of which was, "EWE-phoria". At first I wasn't sure how that would translate into a card, but when I was retrieving the Star Brads for the first card, I saw my Knitting Brads and thought about how much I love yarn, some of which --coincidentally-- comes from sheep. I drew the long tangly trail verrrrrrry lightly in pencil and stitched over it twice with my sewing machine. Then I added my alphabet stickers and finally set the Sheep Brad, plus two balls of blue yarn (the packs also contain yellow, purple and green) and the needles from the Knitting Brads.

That's all for today. If you need me, I'll be right over there, near the air conditioning vent, knitting! ♥

SOS402: gone fishin'

it's one of my favorite themes this fortnight at shopping our stash. for "gone fishin'" we'd like to see projects which feature fish or other sea creatures, or which have a fishing theme. i've probably already made elebenty gazillion "best fishes" cards, but i have no intention of stopping any time soon, because they are always (to me!) fun to make and send.

scribbly fishes stamp set by dina wakley for ranger; stamped in black archival ink on scraps of patterned paper from MANY sources including: graphic 45, lawn fawn, dcwv, creative imaginations and echo park; alphas: lawn fawn; glossy black cardstock: the paper cut; adhesives: elmers brand glue tape, 3m foam tape, sewing machine

first of all, i guess it's obvious, i made a tall card. i love seeing them, and i love making them, but it must be said, they are harder to photograph than other shapes of cards. this one was a fantastic use of scraps, however, since i only needed quite small pieces on which to stamp my dina wakley "scribbly fishes" and i used lots of narrow offcuts to make layers of waves. i do, in fact, own a cool waves die (it's part of mama elephant's "landscape trio") but on this night i was too lazy to get up and get it. so i just drew scallopy wave shapes on the back of my scraps and cut them out. sometimes low tech really is less work, lol. after i had stamped and fussycut the fishes, and stacked my waves, the only thing left to add was a sentiment. i used ancient medium-sized alphabet stickers in a green that coincidentally matches the turtle perfectly. and yes, at the very, very end, i did a bit of machine stitching, not because it was needed, but because i felt like it.

there's lots more fishy fun over on the SOS blog. i hope you'll check that out right now! ♥

blue... times two!

we're still celebrating "blue christmas" at jingle belles and you are still invited to join the fun! this week, i wound up with two cards, though one of them is distinctly blue-er than the other!

i recently acquired this beautiful hero arts poinsettia ornament die from the "xmas in july" shop box at paper anthology. and i can think of A LOT of ways to use it, but my first instinct, when i saw it in the store, was to diecut the top layer from watercolor paper and paint it with colorburst. so that's what i did. here's my top tip for creating with colorburst, acrylic paint, modeling paste, or anything else that involves drying time: make two or three at the same time. that way, if your first idea doesn't pan out, you've got a second chance, sitting right there on your table! in this case, i painted the poinsettias with ultramarine colorburst that had a teeny tiny bit of prussian blue mixed in; and the foliage with terre vert to which i added a little verdi gris liquid metal. when my creation was dry, i layered the diecut ornament over a leftover panel of a similar shade of blue, and trimmed neatly around the edge. then i embellished with seambinding, small prima flowers held on with eyelet outlet pearl brads, and a few extra stick-on pearls and snowflake bling. up until now, this endeavor is very very blue indeed. but then i had to select a background paper. and this scrap of ancient green echo park patterned paper just made the ornament stand out SO MUCH MORE than any shade of blue in my collection. so i went with it, but decided to use my "fall back"ornament in something a little more blue.

my fallback ornament has poinsettias painted with prussian blue colorburst, smaller blossoms of diluted ultramarine and foliage in a very very diluted shade of lime green. i layered the finished diecut on top of a rejected experiment involving gelato crayons and white modeling paste which didn't look very lovely on its own, but was perfect for the inside of the bauble! i added a larger prima flower to one side, then found the perfect blue background with just enough detail. my sentiment is composed of ancient and well-hoarded basic grey alphabet stickers, which i still contend is the best ever font for cardmaking!

so technically, only one of these cards really fits this fortnight's "blue xmas" challenge at jingle belles. but i do really like how they both came out, and in my experience, there is absolutely NO downside to having a few extra holiday cards when december rolls around!  

Inspired by... SOCKS?

Inspiration really is EVERYWHERE! Sometimes I find it myself, and other times, a friend or family member sends me something which triggers an idea. These cards are the result of the latter; I'll explain in a minute. But meanwhile check out the adorable Eyelet Outlet Llama Brads and Llama Washi Tape:

Now, here is the inspiration, an actual pair of socks spotted in a shop by my craft bestie and EO Design Team alumnus, Stephanie:

Of course as soon as I saw it I immediately thought, "LLAMA BRAD CARD!!!" :) I made the vertically oriented card first, using two sets of alphabet stamps for the sentiment. You'll notice the base is a fun graph paper print; Doodlebug has a whole rainbow of them, which I love, even just aesthetically. But also... if you're going to hand stamp a long sentiment, one letter at a time, it's nice to work on a paper which has a nice strong horizontal line. Just sayin'. I placed the star of the show, the handsome Llama Brad, next to his name, popped on a purple Heart Enamel and filled the rest of the panel with Llama Tape. 

I actually love everything about the first card, but it did occur to me as I was working that it would be fun to have more color in the sentiment AND I'd like it even more if the sentiment was on three lines instead of four. So this time I chose a stamp set that could be colored in, and turned my paper horizonal so that "ding dong" fit on one line. Since that meant no "extra" space at the bottom, I placed two strips of Llama Tape right down the middle, and spelled out "llama" in chipboard letter stickers so they'd stand out. The two lowercase L's seemed like the perfect place for another Llama Brad. And since the Heart Enamels were still sitting on my worktable, it seemed a shame not to add a few.

What have you seen lately in a shop, a website or even a catalog that made you think, "Hey! That might look good on a card!"? Whatever it was, I'm going to bet that Eyelet Outlet has a brad which could make your idea even better!

Blue Christmas

It's time for a brand new prompt at Jingle Belles and this time, we're feeling BLUE. Or rather, we're feeling quite cheerful, but making holiday cards which are predominantly blue. And we'd love for you to join us! Here's what I made:

 

The only time I ever really long for snow is in the middle of a HOT and humid New Jersey summer, lol. And of course if you want snow at the beginning of August, you have to make it yourself, so I did! I used my Tim Holtz/Sizzix "Stacked Snowflakes" die to cut lots of layers of snowflakes from Prima's Geogia Blues collection. Then I stacked them with little slivers of foam tape between the layers for extra dimension. I had trouble finding a background paper that set the snowflakes off well enough, so I wound up making my own, from a piece of dark blue Core'dinations cardstock. I started with a fun and flakey embossing folder, sanded the impression to get some color variation, then added extra swirls of machine stitching. Finally, I affixed my fancy layered flakes, and finished off with some Eyelet Outlet pearl bling. 

Stephanie also has a beautiful Blue Christmas card to show you. Why not head over to Jingle Belles and see that right now? ♥