Where Exactly Did June Go??!

Considering that many of us have spent the vast majority of the last few months AT HOME, it's surprising how quickly the weeks keep rushing by! This seems like a good time for a Travelers Notebook update. Not that I've had many plans or travels to record, lol, but since I use my TN Free Diary Monthly Refill to record all of my creative assignments, June is as full as all of the previous entries! Visit The Ink Pad Blog for all the details of this fun spread.

ICAD-ing Along

Here's this week's worth of conveniently-sized index card art from ICAD2020 which I've been sharing daily on my Instagram; if you'd like to check out the prompts or other info it's all here in the Blog section of  Daisy Yellow Art!

day 20: birdhouse

my SOS dt sister and ICAD buddy mimi shared a big, luscious stack of library catalog cards with me and a few she had even *watercolored* like this beautiful green one. it made the perfect home for a little collage inspired by the super-songful house wren whom i met at my friend anna's house! 

(because YES, i went OUT, to a place!) 

day 21: robot

i should probably mention that i've been doing whichever prompt appeals to me on whatever day i have an idea. so my numbering system is different than the official, 100% optional, list. this one features (surprise!) another awesome library card with a vintage illustration and some fun cloud doodles.

day 22: mandala monday

i was running out of tabbed index card dividers, but the only plain manilla ones on staples' website came in a box of 100. i hemmed and hawed, but since i do love them for watercoloring and i figured i could share a bunch with my nieces, i caved and got them. SO happy i did, because they are best ones i've ever found, they can be colorbursted to my heart's content without buckling! ♥

day 23: geode

or possibly "sparkly cabbage" would be a better name, lol? definitely a fun combination of  chartreuse, lime and turquoise colorburst, plus some verdigris liquid metal. outlined with a golden tinou glitter marker and my trusty faber-castell pitt pens.

day 24: terrarium

i based my drawing on artwork i found via google image search, which i somehow neglected to save, and now cannot re-find to give credit. (sorry!)

day 25: emerald

there are probably too many ideas here, lol. basically i had a FAB new stencil called "doodle it geometric landscape" by maria mcguire, for StencilGirl, and i couldn't wait to play with it! :)

day 26: bougainvillea

the old saying that you really haven't SEEN something properly until you've tried to draw it is definitely true! for example, bougainvillea have veined petals in clusters of threes, with a sort of center trough, and a tiny white flower center surrounding some yellow pollenny stuff. not sure i captured any of that... but thanks to ColorBurst in shades of peony, alizarin crimson and gamboge i think i managed the huge hit of color pretty accurately, at least. 

♥♥♥

hope you are having a fun and creative last saturday of june!

Shapely Heart

We're still making SHAPED cards at Jingle Belles (by which we mean anything except the standard rectangle or square) and you're still invited to join us, which we hope you will! Here's what I made this week:

I decided to make a heart shaped card, using my largest heart stencil, which is about 4 x 6". I made a fun scalloped border by punching about a dozen 1 3/8" circles and sandwiching them between the stripey heart and a hidden, heart-shaped, hinged cardbase that's the same size. All of the papers used in this card came from ancient and well-hoarded Basic Grey holiday collections, which I still adore. I'll be sad when I use up my dwindling stash! 

Be sure to visit Jingle Belles and see Stephanie's beautiful card, as well as the sweet little prize that will go to one randomly chosen cardmaker who links up with us this fortnight! ♥

Thank You, Mr. Holtz!

Have you been watching Tim Holtz's series of FaceBook Live Demos? If not, I recommend cruising through the archive, because arguably no one in the craft industry has introduced us to more specialty products; and for sure no one uses the TH products better than the man himself! Last Saturday (6.20) was the first half of a feature on Alcohol Inks, in which Tim reviewed all of the "basics" including the different varieties of ink and the other products which work with them; this Saturday (6.27) will be more focused on techniques. Not only did I learn some really cool things in the "Basics" episode, I was super-inspired to get out my AIs and accessories and use them to make a bunch of backgrounds plus a couple of fun cards! More details and links to all the products I used on The Ink Pad Blog today!

Have a Magical Day

It's been a while since I've made a card with the lovely Eyelet Outlet Fairy Brads, and I've been missing them! So here's a "magical" slimline card:

I used a favorite StencilGirl Vintage Typewriter alphabet stencil to add the word "MAGICAL" in exactly the right shades of Distress Oxide Ink to coordinate with all four Fairy Brads that come in each packet!

I used white foam alphas to finish the sentiment and added the Fairy Brads, a few Mini Stitched Flowers and some Blue Sequins for a bit of sparkle. I machine-stitched the panel onto my slimline card base that I made from a well-hoarded, super-thick Hambly transparency.

I hope you are having a Magical... and creative... day! ♥

Sweets to the Sweet

We're rockin' the *SWEETNESS* this fortnight at Shopping Our Stash either literally or figuratively. For "You're So Sweet" you can make a project that includes sweet kiddos, cute pets, adorable baby sentiments etc; OR sweet treats like candy or cupcakes. Guess which I chose, lol?

Here's a little backstory: My friend (& Eyelet Outlet chief) Suzanne Marchesano's mom, Irene Pond, turned ninety a couple of weeks ago. Her kids had been planning a big celebration, naturally, but then this whole fun CoVid19 thing happened instead, and Mrs. Pond's adult community went into lockdown. So Suzanne hit upon the idea of the card-equivalent of a surprise party, and put a call out to papercrafters via FaceBook in hopes of getting *90* greetings sent to her mom. But, nope, that didn't happen. Apparently, Mrs. P. received over 150 cards from all over the country! The local paper even wrote a little feature! This is the sort of story I love to hear, and it confirms my belief that crafters are some of the kindest people in the world. 

Of course I wanted to participate, so I texted Suzanne for a few "hints" to personalize my card. It turned out that Mrs. P. and I share a deep and abiding love for frozen desserts, and as soon as I heard that, I knew I wanted to make a big card with a Nancy Standlee-style collaged ice cream cone. This is a great SOS project, because all of my papers were scraps. The cone is made of paper strips and some fun Eyelet Outlet Tapes. The strawberries are a discontinued brad style that I still love. I finished off with Round Sequin sprinkles and a scatter of tiny Star Sequins in the background.

Be sure to check out the sweet treats from the SOS design team, they are sure to inspire you as much as they inspire me! ♥

Pride in the City

The pandemic has changed so many "real life" events in 2020, but New York City always celebrates PRIDE in style during the month of June, and this year is no exception. The big official gathering will be a Virtual Rally on June 26th from 5-8pm via FaceBook and YouTube; but at The Ink Pad we're starting a bit early, with a card version! It's on TIP Blog today! ♥

Index Cards EVERYWHERE

Ok, technically all of my many styles of index cards (I try to find a new variety each year, then share with my nieces) all live together in one little file box, but there are quite a few of them. Here are the ones I finished this week:

day 13: kite or rhombus

but a zen doodle kite, though, obviously! :)

(i wish i could TANGLE like my friends lorraine and cyndie!)

'

day 14: off prompt

we've had a tiny little chipmunk hanging around the yard for the last couple of weeks. so clearly i needed to make a one-staple collage in his honor!

day 15: chamomile

super minimal... it was hard to leave all that white space...

(i should point out that i'm numbering these by the day i do them, not by the official prompts list; i tend to jump around a bit...)

day 16: off prompt

on this day i got the set of 36 zig clean color realbrush markers from the ink pad. and since my life goal is #tryallthepens i obviously had to use as many as possible IMMEDIATELY.

day 17: dandelion

a space-age variety in blue... these only grew in palm springs in the late 1950's.

day 18: mustard yellow

the part of "mustard" is being played by squeezed lemonade and fossilized amber distress oxides; as ballpark and dijon mustards, respectively.

(experimenting with an awesome stencilgirl 6x6 stencil called four tribal patterns, designed by andrew borloz.)

day 19: six word story

i've always wanted to write a six word story, and someday i will, but on this day, i kind of went with six word self help book, instead!

♥♥♥

Hope you had a good week and that you have something fun planned today!

Get in Shape for the Holidays

The official start of summer next week seems like the perfect time to get "in shape" at Jingle Belles, but luckily there's no diet or exercise required, we just want you to make a shaped card, by which we mean NOT a square or rectangle. Of course a fancy fold or some clever engineering (like an easel card, slider or pop-up) will also qualify. I went with an ornament-shaped card, based on a homemade template from a year or two ago.

I loved Prima's "Georgia Blues" collection from last year and I still have a bit left, such as that pretty paper with the white-on-white scrolls. The flowers I think are Petaloo, but they're old enough to just be in a jar with other ancient leftover flowers. The leaves are velvetty 7 Gypsies ones that my friend Elisabeth found in the basement of Paper Anthology, the seambinding is also from PA. The pearl flourish is from Want 2Scrap. I cut a base from dark blue cardstock to make this unusual shaped card, with its very small hinge, a little bit sturdier. But I also like how it sort of "outlines" the card!

Hop over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's shaped card and start planning what you'll make!

The WRITE Stuff!

Would you believe we've added even more "must-have" pens to The Ink Pad's already impressive selection? Well, it's true, and I even made a little book to celebrate that fact. More about the book... and the pens in question... on The Ink Pad Blog today! ♥

DINO-miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiite!

The latest addition to the Eyelet Outlet menagerie are these adorable Dinosaur Brads, which are both classic AND Jurassic! Nephew Matthew is not here to confirm this, so I (Lauren) cannot be 100% sure, but I *think* the dinos which come in each pack are Tyrannosaurus, Diplodocus and Styracosaurus. What I am absolutely positive about is that they are suuuuuuuuuuuper cute!

My first card has more white space than I think I've ever used in my entire life, lol. But then dinosaurs need a lot of room, right? I made a softly stenciled background of foliage on which to place my Dino Brads, then added a peek-a-boo layer on top, with pierced holes to add interest around each window. I used chipboard alphabets for "RAWR" and a vintage Elite typewriter for the rest of my sentiment.

My second card uses the same stenciled foliage and yellow letters, but this time they're arranged in a long strip matted on some Glitter Gold Tape and the dinos are frolicking around the word "DINO-MITE". I added little block letters to complete the birthday phrase.

Eyelet Outlet will be participating in another Stamp and Scrapbook Expo Virtual Show, this Saturday, June 20th. Be sure to check our FaceBook page for details, and join designer Janet Axtman as she shows off the latest and greatest EO goodies! ♥

Just a Card...

...for my sister's birthday. She and her kids were planning to visit friends near Orlando for the big event, but due to CoVid, that's been postponed until later this summer. So I made her a Florida card, instead.

I used mostly vintagey things-- a map, an illustration from a travel book and part of a postcard-- to convey her advanced age, lol! (Ok, technically, she is younger than me!) I found this fun flowery surfboard and the starfish on am Echo Park sticker sheet from a few years ago. The flowers are various Prima and Prima-like entities, with brads from October Afternoon, Amy Tangerine and SEI. I used this week's Sketch Saturday (#614) so I'd know where everything went.

It's kind of a big card (just over 7" square) but then this was kind of a big birthday, so that works! Happy Birthday, Amie! ♥ 

Mandala Monday

Here's a fun idea for anyone who'd like to start making mandalas, but doesn't want to draw: a mandala made with beautiful, tiny, round Lucille stickers, and a few circle stamps from Everyday Explorers Co; plus some other cool new goodies from The Ink Pad. All the info on TIP Blog today!

I'm an ICAD-ian

...and you can be too, all you need is a stack of index cards! No need to catch up; no need to follow the prompts (but they're HERE if you want them); absolutely ANY creative media is fair game. This week I mostly felt like doodling... next week it might all be collage or stencil creations or... who knows?

day 6: dreamcatcher

i'm not in love with my proportions here, but my first attempt at drawing a dreamcatcher was definitely fun, so i predict you'll be seeing more in future.

day 7: highway

like the song says: life is an abstract, zendoodle highway, am i right?

day 8: suzani pattern

yes, i had to google "suzani" and the amazing tapestries i found may 

have sparked a bit of an obsession. just sayin'...

day 9: bookcase

i was planning to do something much more abstract, but this 

unexpectedly became quite a literal bookcase, which is fine.

day 10: david bowie

i may come back to this prompt, because i feel like i didn't come up with an awesome concept. i went sort of blank, so i just drew a stylized diamond-ish pattern based on my second favorite bowie song, "diamond dogs". i like it but it doesn't seem bowie-ish enough somehow...

day 11: off prompt

i had an idea for "tiramisu" which you may see later on, but on this particular day i had brought home some amazing new glitter markers the ink pad is carrying and so i had to play with them.

day 12: brocade

is it wrong that i now want some pillows 

made from my wonky indian-inspired brocade pattern??

♥♥♥

Ribbons and More Ribbons

We're still making cards that feature ribbons, trimmings and lace at Jingle Belles and you're still invited to "tie one on" with us! Here's what I made this week:

patterned paper: daisy d's plus the green dotted piece that is actually from making memories packaging; journal card: simple stories; flowers: imaginisce; brad: fancy pants; enamel heart and skinny washi: eyelet outlet; ribbons, twine and velvet trim: doodlebug design; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, sookwang scor-tape (to attach the ribbons) and machine stitching

Definitely not the fanciest card I've ever made, but it incorporates a lot of older elements that look quite sweet together and it's semi-flat, so I'm calling it a win! I chose the colors based on the ancient Daisy D's plaid patterned paper, found a Simple Stories journal card that matched perfectly and added ribbons and trims from an elderly assortment by Doodlebug. My Imaginisce flowers and brad, not to mention the fun Eyelet Outlet Enamel Heart and a little bit of machine stitching seemed like pretty good finishing touches.

Head on over to Jingle Belles where you can see Stephanie's ribbon-centric masterpiece and link up one of your own!

Natural Neutrals

Most of the time I'm a "Use EVERY Color in the Big Box of Crayons" kinda gal, but sometimes it's nice to go a bit monochrome and elegant! This card is a trifold featuring Hero Arts' Bookcase Woodmount Stamp on the left panel and a few dozen of the whimsical text stickers from Tim Holtz's Idea-Ology Clippings Sticker Book, on the right-hand panel. You can read more about it on The Ink Pad Blog today! ♥

A Graduation Toast

Not enough graduation toasts include ACTUAL toast, imo; a fact I have set out to correct, in card form.

I saw a cartoon somewhere with kawaii toast wearing a graduation cap and of course being a good Eyelet Outlet gal, I realized it would be even better with our Graduation Hat Brads and the Toast from the Bacon, Egg and Toast set. 

If you prefer your toasts a little less punny, the champagne glasses in the Eyelet Outlet Wedding Brad set might be more to your liking. Because YES, Eyelet Outlet literally has a brad for EVERYTHING!!! :) 

Look Out For Those UFO's!

Because I'm pretty sure we all have at least a few half-completed backgrounds... or some pretty flowers we spent time fussy-cutting and then they didn't fit;  or the images we stamped but didn't color, or colored but didn't use... in short we all have Un-Finished Objects, aka U-F-O's! This fortnight at Shopping Our Stash we want to to retrieve a few of those and actually use them to make a card or other project. Sound good? Yeah, we thought so too.

I always have tons of leftovers and/or discards, because I often change my mind midstream, lol. I do go back and use them fairly regularly though. I have a storage section that has card-sized collaged or inked or colorbursted panels; a set of small drawers that's just xmas diecuts; and a whole series of envelopes that hold pre-fussy-cut collage elements. I raided the collaged panels and fusscut goodies and actually managed to pull together a four cards in an evening! Geez... I should do this more often!

The tulips miiiiiiiight be my fave. It's a simple card, but hey, who doesn't like a macro flower pic against a collage panel? I used one of the collage paper backgrounds (I often make a totally random "clean up collage" of leftover text papers instead of putting them away or throwing them out); a heart cut from some gorgeous Blue Fern Studio patterned paper and a mat of mustard-colored cardstock that I cannot imagine having bought, but it was *perfect* with the tulips.

I used another of the pre-made collage paper backgrounds make an "ink over collage" mandala using distress inks and pitt artist pens, then added one of the fussy-cut roses. I made a simple sheet music background for another of the roses with just some White Lace Tape and a skinny pink mat to serve as a sympathy card. Finally, one of the illustrated roses got added to the last collage background, which I trimmed down a bit. I confess that I've never seen a sparrow land on a flower in real life, but he's super-cute, so let's pretend it makes sense. It needed one more thing, so I scattered some Pretty Pink Posh champagne-colored sequins. The End. :) 

Of course you only need to make one UFO-centric card to join us at SOS, but who knows? Maybe you'll get on a roll too! ♥

It's Stencil (and Spray Ink!) Sunday

Have you tried Ranger's Distress Oxide Sprays yet? They come in soooooo many beautiful colors and pair extremely well with stencils; especially the beautiful stencils Michelle Ward designed exclusively for The Ink Pad! You should check out The Ink Pad Blog and add a little color to your day!

Hello ICAD 2020

Hard to believe we're already well into the first week of this year's Index Card a Day project. But then in 2020, time has either FLOWN past at warp speed or crawled like... a thing that crawls really slowly. Meanwhile, here's my ICAD roundup:

the book

you definitely do not need a fancy book in which to keep your index cards, and i don't make one to be a showoff, honest; but because i love making little books and know from experience that having one will spur me on to add a new card each night.  

day 1: off prompt

(mandala monday)

i love the optional prompt lists that tammy g posts at daisy yellow and on social media. but for me, mondays are always going to mean mandalas, and finding extra time on eight consecutive sunday nights to make a mandala AND an ICAD is not going to happen. so for june and july, mandala mondays are index-card-centric; while at the same time, i will joggle around the prompts so that i can do the ones that speak to me, on whatever day i get them done. again, i stress the importance of tailoring ICAD to make it work for you. 

day 2: hopscotch

when we were looking at the prompts, my sister said "hopscotch" made her think of "butterscotch", which apparently stuck in my head when i sat down to make this card.

day 2a: #blackouttuesday

i was impressed and moved by both the level of participation in #blackouttuesday and by the  thoughtful and sometimes profound messages that people expressed. i wanted to remember this one, so i made the simplest of cards.

day 3: marigold

an actual drawing, from a reference photo!
colored in with archival inks using sponge daubers.

day 4: sequins

if you ever think to yourself, "i wonder if it would be fun and meditative to use a dot marker to make dozens of small round shapes, then pierce a hole in the center of each one, outline and add a shadow?" let me save you some time by answering NOPE. 

day 5: 1980's

(one-staple collage)

kind of psyched to have worked this beloved ICAD tradition into week one!

(if you're wondering what i'm talking about: the first or second year i did ICAD, tammy g had brainstormed a whole list of creative prompts and twists. "stapled collage" immediately obsessed me; and for reasons i can't explain, i immediately decided the whole collage should be held together with ONE STAPLE. i made one and posted it, tammy saw it and made one too, and it kind of became A Thing. it tends to revive most years and is a very fun/challenging collage exercise because the structure of having only one attachment point changes EVERYTHING!)

If you're already ICAD-ing I hope you're having as much fun as I am; if you're not yet ICAD-ing, it's NOT too late to start! The (entirely optional!!!) prompts for weeks one and two are here. Don't worry about catching up, just jump in and give it a try! ♥