It's in the Bag!

I love giving super-fancy presents to my friends and family for holidays and birthdays, but I definitely don't like paying fancy prices for giftwrap and bags; especially when I have lots of lovely Eyelet Outlet Bling and Washi Tape to make my gifts stand out! 

For these gifts I wanted a really elegant winter and festive feeling, without embracing any particular holiday, so I went with lots of blue, silver and white. I used Glitter Winter Washi on my first bag, and surrounded it with Glitter Silver Star Tape plus Silver Foil Skinny Tape. My diecut snowflakes are topped with 1 1/2" Snowflake Bling and Bumpy Heart Bling and I've scattered some Blue Pearl Bling and Snowflake Sequins around for good measure. My second design features Glitter Tall Tree Tape surrounded by White Foil and Twig Tape. 

Whatever colors, themes and holidays you love, I bet there are Eyelet Outlet Brads, Bling, Tapes and Sequins to make your gifts as beautifully individual as you are! ♥

Thanks, Thanks, Thanks

For cardmakers, the beginning of December gets taken over by Christmas or Hanukkah cards; but the end of December is all about Thank You cards! Here's a super colorful design that is fast and easy to make a bunch of, featuring Lawn Fawn's Thanks, Thanks, Thanks stamp set from The Ink Pad. You can read more about it on TIP Blog today!

Last Minute Mayhem!

What do you do when you discover at the verrrrrrrry last minute that you need FIVE more cards NOW?! Just grab a sheet of journaling cards, your favorite Eyelet Outlet holiday brad styles, and some washi tape and you're all set! 

These cards are just slightly smaller than the classic A2, made to fit a little stack of odd-sized envelopes I came across. All of the backgrounds are made of washi tape and there's a super-skinny mat behind each which could easily be made from Glitter Tape or Foil Tape.

I used the colors and themes of the journal cards to suggest which brads I would add... the car illustration (above) already had a tree on top, but I added a Pine Tree Brad for more dimension and interest. I put Screw Brads on the hubcaps and made a background from Wide Tree Tape. The little elf (below) obviously needed an Ornament Brad and a Star for the top of his tree. The soft sage green in Poinsettia Tape was the perfect color match.

The "Ho Ho Ho" card could easily have incorporated more ornaments, or Holiday Lights, Wreath Brads, Santa and Missus Claus, Snowman or Snowman Couple Brads, even Snowflakes or Poinsettias! But I went with three Santa Hat Brads, affixed to a few of the O's. The background is Ornament Tape, which lines up perfectly in horizontal strips to make full-sized ornaments.

A mat made of Christmas Pattern argyle style tape picks up the colors of the Holiday Coffee Cup and  Candy Cane Brad this cute snowman is holding.

Finally for the sweet elves, I added another candy cane and a Heart Brad, with a background of Tree Washi Tape... another washi selection that can be made into a full sheet, just by working patiently in strips.

I hope you'll be inspired to add Eyelet Outlet holiday brads and tape to your store bought tags, cards and bows this gift-giving season! Visit the EO Blog for more brilliant last-minute ideas!

Merry Little Christmas

There are few things more "merry" than Santa's sleigh, and when it comes to "little" stamps, it's definitely hard to beat Lawn Fawn, right? Those tiny stamps are admittedly on the small side for building an entire card around, but luckily they pair perfectly with Concord & 9th's Seasonal Sayings and Picket Fence Studio's Reindeer Games background. But it was the "twist" of embossing the latter in WOW Primary Pink Robin that made all the difference; read all about it on The Ink Pad Blog!

Merry and BRIGHT!

You can't get much merrier... or brighter, lol... than fast and easy holiday cards made with MT Shocking Pink, Shocking Greenand Neon Gradation Slim Tape Setfrom The Ink Pad. This card and the details of how I made it, are on TIP Blog today!

Peaceful Winter Day

A simple, snowy card featuring baubles filled with wintery Eyelet Outlet wildlife brads: Penguins, Moose and Polar Bears, oh my!

I diecut three ornament shapes, each composed of navy paper flecked with snow for the sky; and white glitter paper for the ground. Then I added two Penguin Brads and a small Snowflake; a stately Moose Brad in front of a Pine Tree; and a mother and baby Polar Bear. I mounted the ornaments on foam tape for extra dimension and positioned them under some sparkly pine branches, then added clear Bling Strips as hangers. I think they're SNOW fun and festive!

Flurries and Pines

'Tis the season to make A LOT of holiday and winter-themed cards pretty quickly! So it helps to have products that do a lot of the work for you. In this case, that would be Hero Arts' Tri-Fold Edge Winter Pines Die Set and Stampendous' Winter Blizzard 6x6 Cling Stamp, from The Ink Pad.

A Bright and Happy Hanukkah

Welcoming the Festival of Lights with a simple but elegant card featuring Michelle Ward's NYC Skyline Stencil and Concord and 9th's Seasonal Sayings stamp set from The Ink Pad. More details on TIP Blog today!

Happy Hanukkah!

Here's a super-easy way to make a fun Hanukkah card without any specific themed product!

I saved the blue candles from several packs of Eyelet Outlet Candle Brads, and arranged them in a line to make a simple menorah shape. I added a blue Tear Drop Bling to act as flames on eight of them, with a Heart Enamel on the Shamash candle in the center; all set atop a sticker sentiment in white, accented with some little Round Enamels.  

There's new inspiration nearly every day on the Eyelet Outlet Blog, so be sure to visit often!

It's NOT an Embarrassed Zebra!

This fortnight is our last 2020 challenge at Shopping Our Stash, and it's quite a good one! We're asking the question, "What's Black and White and Red All Over"... but in this case we already know that the answer is a cool papercrafting project. Mine's a card, see?

This is quite a stash-y card. The base is an off-cut of vintage sheet music. I've used a bunch of Eyelet Outlet Washi Tapes that have been discontinued, plus a few that are still available; plus the cool Matte Red Enamel Dots which I've had for ages but never used. The Penny Black poinsettia die is a year or two old, though Bountiful Berries is quite new; as is that excellent Non-Shed Glitter Paper from Paper Anthology. The papers are all scraps; in fact the top pattern is from Daisy D's... remember them? Definitely going back a bit with that one!

Be sure to hop over to SOS and see the amazing inspiration the DT have whipped up for you, then link up your own Black, White and Red creation!

This Holly is Jolly

Hero Arts' Bold Prints cover stamps are 6" square which means you really don't need very much else to finish a nice big card! This one is called Christmas Rose and all the details of how I used it to make this card can be found on The Ink Pad Blog!

NEW: Homespun Holidays!

My newest Class in a Kit is live on the Paper Anthology website, called Homespun Holidays and has a strong winter/seasonal theme, rather than a particular holiday. It looks a bit like this:

All of the stamping and diecutting has been done for you; and a detailed set of instructions, with individual photos of each card, is provided. You'll need only basic cardmaking tools and a few adhesives to finish these three sweet and cozy cards. The hardest part will be deciding which friends to send them to!

The Sprawl

We've just polished off our TENTH Jingle Belles season, and as always it was full of fun, friendship and inspiration plusssssssssssssss... My holiday cards are finished on December 4th which feels like a really big win. I couldn't quite fit them all onto the table, but this is a nice representation.

We'll be starting up again on January 1st and you're officially invited to join us!!! ♥

The Best Place for Snow!

Nothing captures the joy of winter weather quite as well as a snow globe, and arguably nobody makes a cuter or more useful snow globe set for cardmakers than Lawn Fawn's Snow Globe Scenes, as I may have mentioned on The Ink Pad Blog this morning!

Sequins, Clearly Seen

Eyelet Outlet Sequins come in Round, Star-Shaped and Snowflakes, in a whole rainbow of colors. Usually they are the finishing touches on a holiday project, but I wanted to make them the center of attention this time! 

I cannot take credit for this concept, because I am sure I saw ornaments similar to the little tree on Instagram; but when I went back to find them, they proved elusive. The idea is pretty simple, though: cut two shapes out of clear plastic, fill them with sequins, and stitch them shut.

About the plastic: it needs to be sturdy but flexible! I cut up a heavy duty clear plastic sleeve like the kind used for storing craft dies. Speaking of dies, I used a medium sized heart and a medium sized star from two sets of nested dies. You definitely want to stick with simple shapes, and it's easiest to cut them one at a time and roll through the machine more than once.

About the sequins: you need to place them pretty much where you'd like them to be in the finished ornament, because they're not going to move about as much as in a shaker window. But you can't get them too near the edge or they will try to escape while you are sewing. And trust me, less is more! 

About the sewing: I machine stitched, but hand cranked the machine. Start and end at the top of the ornaments and leave long tails, so they can act as the hangers. I used the same white heavy duty upholstery thread for my bobbin and top thread. You can use a tiny piece of washi tape to secure one edge of the ornament while you start sewing, but it's kind of fiddly to remove. I found that holding the two shapes together and just working slowly and carefully was the easiest. 

My favorite thing about these little ornaments is that I got to use ALL the styles (and quite a few colors!) of Eyelet Outlet Sequins!