Boo to You

In this Interesting Year of 2020, Halloween is bound to be a bit different, so it seems like an especially great time to send cards and other greetings, doesn't it? Luckily Eyelet Outlet has plenty of brads to suit the season! I've made a trio of ATCs that can stand alone OR become the centerpieces of some fun cards.

EO Ghost Brads are so cute it's almost scary! Though these guys seem to have been frightened off by a pair of Mini Spider Brads?

Monster Brads, on the other hand, are not afraid of anything... except maybe missing out on their share of the sweets, like Candy Corn Brads! The Bat Brad in the corner is hoping they remember to brush and floss afterwards.

It's a banner day for the witch who lives in the last ATC, thanks to Taylored Expressions' Pennant Parade Cling and Clear set, also the source of the cute sentiments! She's parked her Witch Hat next to a Pumpkin Brad while she goes to fetch her Broom... or maybe her Vacuum??

I hope you'll be inspired to make some fun Halloween cards or ATCs to share with your friends and family. Check out all of the awesome Holiday Brads in the EO store!

SOS430: On Trend: Slimline Cards

Slimline cards... (we used to call them Tall Cards, back in the day, lol) ...are the hottest thing at the moment, whether you make the "official" size of 3.5 x 8.5" or just a skinny version of an A2, we encourage you to try out this fun shape with us at Shopping Our Stash this fortnight! 

I made a full-sized Slimline because I found this gorgeous bass (I think...?!) in an ancient, falling apart garage sale book called, "The Wondrous World of Fishes" I made him a watery home using torn and distressed bits of leftover gelprints; added Eyelet Outlet Sequin bubbles and spelled out "Best Fishes" using ancient square alphabet stickers. (Since I started serious cardmaking --circa 1990ish-- I have probably made my brother, Bill, at least twenty versions of a "Best Fishes" card for his birthday; someday I will get tired of it, but that day did not arrive this year, lol!) A skinny-skinny mat of Idea-Ology silver metallic cardstock completes the design. This guy would've fit nicely in a storebought #10, but I decided to make a custom envelope, using an Ireland page from an old British road atlas, big letters from the dollar store and a sheet of Volkswagen stickers from Pipsticks!

Hop on over to SOS to see the Crew's super-inspiring Slimline Cards, then start planning what you will link up with us this fortnight!

Stencil Sunday: Cozy Campfire Edition

Here's a shocking true confession: When Tim Holtz announced the newest Distress Color, Crackling Campfire, I was not entirely convinced. Did we really need another orangey-red? Wouldn't it be too close to either Barn Door or Ripe Persimmon? And then the ink in question arrived at The Ink Pad and of course I was entirely smitten. The moral of this story? Trust Tim!!! More about the color, the card and the palette on The Ink Pad Blog today.

Dashing Through the Snow

We're all about the winter white stuff this fortnight at Jingle Belles, so break out the snowflakes, snowmen, snowdrifts and snowy landscapes and get a jump on those holiday cards before any actual snow has time to fall! Here's what I made:

I broke out my adorable Pretty Pink Posh snowdude and realized what a great match he was for this long hoarded Basic Grey snowman patterned paper. White glitter paper snowy hills and Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Bling complete the festive snowscape, with a diecut sentiment from Elizabeth Craft Designs.

Be sure to ski, sled or skate over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's card and link up your own!

Folded Fronts

The Collins Virtual Online Symposium was a very inspiring experience for all of us at The Ink Pad. There are loads of fabulous new products on order; but in the meantime, we're having fun exploring some of the ideas gleaned from the wonderful classes. Dare 2B Artzy showed off a card that had a really cool fold, so I just had to try my own version. The results are on The Ink Pad Blog this morning!

I used Altenew's Hennah Elements Stamps for my focal images, and nestled the fussy-cut flowers and leaves on stacked Postage Infinity Dies from Hero Arts. Both cards are A2s, and landscape oriented,so that they have their hinges on the lefthand side. This allowed me --before I began to embellish-- to SCORE and fold back a portion of the card fronts. So the card on top in the photo above has had it's front scored vertically at the 2.75" point, and folded back. The card on the bottom had it's front flap scored diagonally and folded back. It may be a bit hard to see what I'm saying in that picture, so here's one with the fronts standing open:

I stamped the flowers in WOW Clear Embossing Ink, embossed with Ranger Black Embossing Powder and colored them with Distress Oxide Inks in Chipped Sapphire, Peacock Feathers, Milled Lavender and Wilted Violet to match the grungy gel prints I used as colorblock panels. (By the way, that is one of my favorite gel printing tips: clean-up prints, uninteresting ghost prints, and failed photo image transfers are GREAT for backgrounds and diecutting!)

I hope you'll be inspired to try a new fold for your cards or art journal pages. And speaking of NEW, our website has a brand NEW section for all the freshest items, you should probably check that out! 

Lauren Bergold

loves making cards!

No Time Like the Presents

I only buy plain, undecorated, giftbags at the big box store. Because I know I can make them unique and fancy with my Eyelet Outlet Goodies! I made this set for my mom's birthday. She loves backyard birdwatching, her beautiful garden, and she's very fond of bling!

I added strips of Bird Tape alternating with Peonies Shimmer Tape, Bird and Flower Tape, accented with Skinny Pink Glitter Tape. I ran each strip neatly around to the side and tucked it into the fold; although a nice thing about rolls of washi tape is that you can actually run your tape all the way around the bag and make a continuous design. (It's still a good idea to start and end in the side fold, however!) I added white Paper Flowers with Pearl Brad and Jewel Brad centers and snipped apart some green Paper Flowers to serve as leaves. Finally I scattered a few hot pink Sequins around for extra sparkle.

If you're going to make a giftbag as fancy as this, you really need to go all the way and make a matching card, right? I used all of the same tapes and embellies as on the bag; just simplified them a bit to fit a smaller, 6" square shape. I did add a sweet bird from our Bluebird and Robin set to the center of my flower stack, too.

I hope you'll be inspired to use your Eyelet Outlet Embellishments to make your own custom gift bags; I know your recipients will love the results!

Playing the Accordion

 ...or at least, playing around with the idea of accordion-folded minibooks. The Ink Pad had the very great pleasure to participate in the Collins Virtual Show last week, and we were blown away by all the classes, teachers, ideas and new products! We'll have lots of the latter coming soon to the store, so stay tuned for sneak peeks! In the meantime, many of the ideas we saw inspired us to use our existing inventory in new and interesting ways. For example, Pinkfresh Studios hosted a class in which we made adorable mini albums just by scoring and folding a page of journaling cards! Genius, right? Well, what if we translated that idea and used hand-stamped and collaged paper, to make a project that's more than a card, but less than an album? Read all about it on The Ink Pad Blog!

Heavy Metal Holiday

We're still making holiday cards featuring gold or other metallic elements at Jingle Belles and you're still invited to join the fun! Here's what I made this week:

patterned paper: ancient hambly metallic snowflakes; metallic matte gold specialty paper: tonic studios; snowflake die: layered snowflakes by th/sizzix, plus a martha stewart snowflake punch for the next-to-top layer; bling and snowflake dies: eyelet outlet; matte gold thicker sentiment: american crafts; adhesives: elmers brand glue tape, 3m foam tape, sewing machine

I had planned to make a card that was mostly SILVER this time, and I do have that beautiful shimmery silver snowflake paper from the late great Hambly Screen Prints, plus two silver diecut snowflake layers. But along the way a fair amount of gold got in there too, and I'm fine with that. There's a bunch of Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Brads and Clear Swirl Bling, for extra sparkle, as well. I knew where to place each element thanks to this week's awesome Sketch Saturday (#627)!

Hop over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's card and link up your own metallic masterpiece!

Because Layers are GOOD!

Especially when the layers in question are Altenew's awesome Layered Medallion Stencils, from The Ink Pad! All the details and a few more colorways are on The Ink Pad Blog this morning!

Here's the Scoop

The newest Eyelet Outlet brad style is pretty sweet: who can resist Ice Cream Brads? Certainly not me so I thought I'd celebrate by making a card.

There are three "flavors" in each packet: strawberry and chocolate, vanilla and chocolate, plus strawberry and vanilla. But I found it much too hard to choose, and since they're totally free of sugar, fat and calories, I adorned my oversized sentiment with one of each. I scattered a few white Heart Brads around as well and matted my panel on some Glitter Pink Design Tape.

Whether you are (like me!) a total Sweet Tooth, or prefer something a bit more savory, there are Eyelet Outlet Food Brads for literally EVERY taste!

Make a Mess!

This fortnight's assignment at Shopping Our Stash is a fun one, providing you are dressed appropriately, lol. We want you to get out those fabulously messy stash items we all love: glitter, paint, pigment powders, liquid or spray or alcohol inks... so put on an apron and have some fun!

6" round gel plate: gel press; large rectangular plate: gelli arts; acrylic paints: dina wakley, golden, liquitex plus some junky craft paint for "clean up" prints; stencils: background flowers: folk art; dots: bo bunny; lace: tim holtz; leaf stencils: wendy vecchi, penny black, stencil girl; flower die: memory box; leaf die: dress my craft; ink for edges: ranger distress oxide; adhesives: xyron, elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, sewing machine 

I like quite a few types of messy media: ColorBursts, of course, and my Dina Wakley Scribble Sticks and Gloss Sprays; but I had a specific person in mind for whom I wanted to make a birthday card, so I decided to go with gel printing! When Stephanie was here last year, she had a brilliant idea for re-stocking our nearly depleted stashes of beloved Basic Grey semi-solid-color papers, by essentially pulling prints that were mostly one color of paint, with a just little grungy residue from whatever the last color and.or pattern was. Since then, I've done the same thing with various paints and inks and it's become a go-to technique. My diecut poppies and leaves are made from a dark green and a pink + red version. Of course, once you've got the plate and paints out, you might as well rock the stencils too, so I've incorporated a print with every shade of green imaginable that used several stencils. I honestly didn't like it on it's own, but as a frame, it's pretty cool! The yellow circle with stenciled leaves is a leftover from a gel printing class I taught at Paper Anthology last year, in which we practiced adding multiple layers, on successive pulls, one stencil at a time.

Hop on over to SOS and check out the beautiful messes embraced by my DT sisters, then start plotting what you will make this time! ♥

TN + Stamps = JOY

This month on Instagram, The Ink Pad's friend and Journal Guru, Andy Evers (aka @storiedpages) is co-hosting a event called "You By Me" in which journalers are encouraged to try making a page in the style of a fellow enthusiast they admire. I chose Andy himself (of course!) and was pretty excited to find that since we both shop at The Ink Pad, we have quite a few products in common; which made my task fairly easy. All the details on this layout as well as my September montly spread on The Ink Pad Blog today!

Baby It's GOLD Outside!

If you've already guessed that this fortnight's brief at Jingle Belles is to incorporate metallics, then well done you; though we should point out that in addition to the eponymous GOLD we'd also accept silver, bronze, copper, or any other metal you'd like to add. I did actually go for the gold, though:

patterned paper: prima (top layer), creative imaginations (music), crafts consortium (red layers); tattered poinsettia die: tim holtz/sizzix; metallic papers: ideaology plus some gold foil giftwrap; distressing tool: prima; kraft cardstock: my colors; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, gluedots, sewing machine

I've incorporated two different patterned papers with metallic gold accents: the top layer is from Prima's Christmas in the Country; the sheet music underneath is Creative Imaginations, I think... it's pretty ancient though, so I might be wrong. I've also got some golden layers in my super-stacked Tattered Poinsettia, a die I've owned for over a decade, but I still use constantly.

Be sure to hop over to Jingle Belles to see what Stephanie has made and start planning your own metallic magic.

Floral Fantasy

I'm absolutely smitten with AlteNew's beautiful Persian Motifs Stamp Set, which I got (surprise!) at The Ink Pad! The set has three different lotus-like flower groupings, plus a bunch of extra leaves and swirls, and four useful sentiments in an understated font. I had fun experimenting with several different combinations of embossing inks and powders, the results are on The Ink Pad Blog this morning!

Cacti for Everyone!

Last week I treated myself to a fun Lawn Fawn Mini Stamp Set with a cactus in it at Paper Anthology, entirely because I knew I had not one, but two, beautiful styles of Cactus Tape from Eyelet Outlet!

My first card features this slightly kawaii version of Cactus Tape with sweet little cacti in their pots. I chose all of my colors specifically to coordinate with the tape, including the addition of Fall Stitched Flowers and Minis (the latter are on sale!) in that pretty mustard yellow. I neatly lined up three strips of the tape on plain white cardstock, then flanked them with two strips of Star Gold Washi. To give a slightly more dynamic feel to the accent panel, I trimmed it at the top and bottom so that it appears my Star Tape is a slightly narrower width.

I made a similar panel for my second card, using Cactus and Flamingo Washi and Green and Gold Foil Tape. This time I rounded the corners on one side, as well, and added the accent panel towards the left, rather than centering it on my A2 card. I added a Flamingo Brad, some pink Heart Pearl accents and a sentiment trimmed from XO Gold Foil Tape.

There are so many cool and interesting ways to incorporate Washi Tape in your cards, and luckily Eyelet Outlet has *hundreds* of fabulous styles to choose from!

Happy Stencil Sunday

Here's a fun card using a couple of the gorgeous Lemurian Garden stencils, designed by The Ink Pad's friend Linda Edkins Wyatt, for StencilGirl. For the record, these are one of our favorite releases of this year! All the details on TIP Blog this morning.

...OOPS...!

Here's a funny (...sorta...) story: We're moving into the second week of the CASE challenge at Jingle Belles, so I headed over to Stephanie's Blog to choose a card I wanted to recreate, saw this gorgeous CAS masterpiece, et voila, job done!

Except... when I went back to link to that post, I realized, it wasn't actually a Jingle Belles card. Rats. I'm happy with how it came out, though; and it features a whole bunch of gorgeous Eyelet Outlet Washi Tape, so I'll show you anyway:

Meanwhile, there are about a gazzillion other Stephanie cards made especially for Jingle Belles that I love enough to make a version of; in fact, here's one now, made for our Stars and/or Stripes challenge in July:

Ok, so... I was pretty faithful to Stephanie's design, though instead of using a bunch of star and stripe patterns to unify my inchies, I chose to combine papers from Prima's "Christmas in the Country" collection, which has plenty of nice small motifs. Since my squares are just a smidge over an inch AND I matted them as well, I elected to move my sentiment up on top of my grid to keep my card size just under A7. I did scatter some Eyelet Outlet Star Brads and Sequins on top, though, because that's one of my favorite elements in the inspo card.

Be sure to hop over to Jingle Belles and see which card of mine Stephanie has remade this week and start scrolling through to choose something YOU would like to CASE!

Pressed Flowers?

New to The Ink Pad: Sixteen varieties of Appree Pressed Flower Stickers, which look exactly like dried flowers, without any of the mess. Perfect for journals, planners, scrapbooks or... as you'll see today on The Ink Pad Blog... cards!

Look for Rainbows

I love rainbows! (I may have mentioned that, lol!) So I'm pretty pleased that Eyelet Outlet has Rainbow Tape (several styles, in fact) and Rainbow Brads (they come with unicorns!) and I'll take any excuse to use one or both, especially if I can also work in rainbow shades of Boot Brads or a rainbow of alphabet stickers... or all of the above!

I made two tape backgrounds from my current favorite Rainbow Washi; and used a fun handwriting font to print sentiments onto plain white cardstock. Cloud-edge dies continue the theme. My first card has a line of Boot Brads in rainbow order (there are five different colors, but don't worry, you get six MATCHING pairs of boots in each set!) The second card has only one pair of boots, but to set the scene, I've also incorporated Sun and Clouds, plus a rainbow from the Unicorn and Rainbow Brad set. Both cards have blue Tear Drop Bling rain splashes.

I hope these rainbows have brightened up your day, and if so, remember there are lots more at Eyelet Outlet!

Bold Colors

We have a beautiful color palette to inspire you this fortnight at Shopping Our Stash. To play along, just use three or more of these lovely shades in your creations: Mustard, Orange, Plum, Dark Green, Pale Green and Dove Grey.

I managed to incorporate all of the colors except the grey, though admittedly, my burnt orange is used very sparingly, in the form of some ancient brads. I lucked into almost all of the shades in this 6x6 sample pack of Blue Fern Studios' "Eclectic Charm" collection, that my friend Elisabeth gave me last year. We carry the 12" version at Paper Anthology, but i liked the scaled down ones for my card. I did LOTS of distressing and a little bit of machine stitching on top. There are about a gazzillion ancient flowers and leaves, to work in more of the plum and soft green colors. I've tucked the last few pieces of a mustard yellow Pearl Swirl from Eyelet Outlet 

Be sure to visit Shopping Our Stash and see the beautiful creations my design teammates have made to inspire you, then link up your own colorful masterpiece!