Pocket Full of Xmas

At Jingle Belles, we're still celebrating the joy and convenience of giving gift cards, by making cards or other containers to hold them. This week I've turned an obsession with a recent Instagram discovery to good use by making a fun folded pocket thingie. See?

It was probably Stephanie who found the IG account @LoveForPaperGoodies and while I love EVERYTHING she posts, I was especially taken with her folded paper pockets; so this seemed like the perfect excuse to make one. I used this video tutorial and was pleasantly surprised to find the technique is quite easy. 

I experimented on different sizes, shapes and weights of paper, and found that generally, the thinner the paper the better; though anything fragile is clearly not a great choice. Making a small crease in one corner is a good paper test; if you find your paper wants to splinter or otherwise misbehave, choose something else. Also rolled giftwrap that cannot be persuaded to lie flat will be a torment throughout (ask me how I know!). The size and shape of the pocket is obviously determined by the size and shape of the paper; for a library-card-sized pocket like I've got here, you want paper that's around 8.5x11". The most important aspects while you're working are to make sure your folds are parallel and perpendicular; also you want to make nice sharp creases.

So what's inside, apart from the gift card? There are basically three levels of pocket, once it's assembled. For the furthest back area, I decorated a #8 shipping tag with some torn paper, vintage postage, a fussy-cut Authentique reindeer and miscellaneous blooms held on with ancient brads. For the middle section I grabbed a #5 shipping tag, trimmed down another Authentique journal card and a sentiment and augmented the holly on Santa's hat with some Eyelet Outlet Holly Brads. And then the gift card tucks into the shallowest pocket right at the front.

Check out Stephanie's project at Jingle Belles and start planning what you'll link up with us this time!

The Eyes Have It

Picket Fence Studios' "Life Happens, Lashes Help" stamp set has seven (7!) sentiments and two images, but the one you notice immediately is the nearly life-sized pair of dramatically lashed eyes. So of course that's the first one I inked up, and it's the centerpiece of my card. Hop over to The Ink Pad Blog to read all about it and see a second, bonus project. (Spoiler Alert: it's a bookmark!)

Wrapping Up the Alphabet

It's the final section of my (Lauren's) Alphabetical Brad Minibook, comprising the letters Q through Z,  and featuring lots more awesome Eyelet Outlet Brads.

Throughout the project, in order to have enough brads to cover the entire alphabet, I've occasionally gotten creative with my names, and sometimes doubled up on letters. For example, the first card in this section covers both Q and R, with "Quacker" represented by our Duck Brads; for "Queen" I've got a Tiara from the Crown and Tiara set; Thread Brad and a Scissor Brad stand in for "Quilting"; the Rainbow is from the Unicorn and Rainbow set; the ring is from our Wedding Brads; and the Rooster Brad speaks for himself.

For the letter S we have: the Sun from Sun and Cloud Brads; Colorful Sunglass Brads, a Sloth from the Sloth and Koala set; a pair of handsome Scarecrows and a Strawberry Brad, which, alas, is now out of print.

The letter T has some good ones: I don't feel like I use our Tractor Brads enough, so it was fun to work one in; same deal for the Typewriter that's in our Typewriter and Hand set; a Tee Shirt from the Jeans and Tee Shirt set; the "Toast" is actually the champagne glasses from our Wedding Brads; and finally some Toilet Paper from the new Toilet Paper and Tissue Brads.

U and V have teamed up together, with: "Utensils" which are technically called Silverware Brads; the umbrella is actually a Beach Umbrella; but the Unicorn Brad is pretty straightforward. Two Heart Brads are masquerading as "Valentines"; the Vacuum Brad is self explanatory; and the "Valise" is from our Travel Brads set.

Surprisingly there are LOTS of great W brads, including: "Words" which are from the Superhero Sayings Brads; a Water Bottle from the Sneaker and Water Bottle Brads; Witch Hats and Witch Legs are each called that, respectively; Waffles come from the Chicken and Waffles set; and the Water Lily is from the Frog Set.

The last card is a triple play, with X, Y and Z all sneaking in! The "X-ray" is a Skull Brad; the "Xmas Tree" is a Pine Tree Brad; the "Yolk" hails from the Bacon, Egg and Toast set; a Yoga Cats always make me smile and they're on sale; Zebra is one third of the Lion, Tiger, Zebra Set and "Zinfandel" is my take on our Wine Brads.

And finally, one last shot of all the ATC-sized pages on their book ring, with the entire alphabet complete:

 

To see the rest of the pages, click this link and all of the ABC Brad Book posts will load on the Eyelet Outlet Blog.

MOM @ SOS

This fortnight at Shopping Our Stash the challenge is called, "I Made This for You, Mom" and if you've already deduced that we're looking for Mother's Day cards and projects, you're way ahead of the game. Here's my card:

Lots of absolutely ancient stash here, including roses I fussy-cut (and outlined) from a sadly neglected GCD paper pad; my trusty mason jar die, used on vellum; scraps of Basic Grey and Fancy Pants papers; and a beautifully patina-ed doily from the whole entire box I got at the flea market, from a lady who was both appalled and delighted that I wanted to buy!

Save the drama (in card form!) for your Mama... then come and link up with us at SOS!

Going to the Dogs

Picket Fence Studios' This Dog is for You stamp is so adorable, it might be doggone irresistible! Here are a pair of cute canine cards which are embossed differently, but both colored with Karin Brushmarker Pros. Hop over to The Ink Pad Blog to read about both versions and see a third attempt that really (REALLY!) did not work! :) 

Everyone Loves Gift Cards!

Of course, one can enclose a gift card in ANY handmade card and it will be awesome, but at Jingle Belles, we like to raise the bar a little bit more, so this fortnight we're making cards that have a purpose-built pocket or window that can contain a gift card; OR a specialty box or envelope intended for the same purpose. There are lots of dies and templates on the market, or you can decorate a store-bought item. Here's what I made:

I confess I incline to the "little box of some sort" school of thought when it comes to gift cards because it just looks so much more substantial. I saved and dissected a little pillowbox that came with skincare samples in it, traced the shape onto some pretty Ciao Bella patterned paper from Paper Anthology, then cut, scored, folded and embellished it.

I made a gift card folder to hold the actual g/c, sized to fit inside the pillow box, and decorated both items with diecuts, silk flowers, ribbon, jewel brads and a little bit of sparkly washi tape.

Be sure to visit Jingle Belles and see Stephanie's awesome project, then start planning what you will link up with us this fortnight!

How've You Bean?

Picket Fence Studios' "For the Love of Coffee" is everything a die set should be: useful (I loooove making coffee cards!); attractive (how fab is that scripty font?); and exactly the right size to work on a card, in a journal, or even a scrapbook page. The only thing that could make it even better would be some Eyelet Outlet Coffee Brads and Sticker Marche Doughnut Stickers. Luckily, they can all be found at The Ink Pad!

The die set has a shadow as well as the sentiment, but I found it covered up too many of my adorable background doughnut stickers, so I went shadow-less this time. I placed coffee beans brads over three of the "O's" and made a little cluster of coffee cups brads and doughnut stickers as a focal point.

I'd love to chat longer, but for some reason I'm totally craving coffee and doughnuts right now! :)

Lauren Bergold

highly recommends 

Donut Pub on 14th St, near 7th Ave!

Birds of a Feather

This week we're welcoming several new brad styles to the Eyelet Outlet family, including realistic Felines, Colored Daisies, a super-cute Kennel Mix, colorful Reptile Brads and my instant favorite: Tropical Birds, which contain two variations of Toucan and three vibrant Parrots!

I paired my beautiful birdies with chunky letter stickers and a gorgeous Dare 2B Artzy Slim Tropical Leaf Border die set from The Ink Pad. As usual, I was unable to resist a couple of diabolical puns, and I've made them into. jpgs images which you can right-click and save. They will also be archived on the freebies page.

I couldn't resist one more completely gratuitous shot of the bird brads staged with the foliage.

I hope you'll head over to the Eyelet Outlet Store and see all of the new brads; and stay tuned to the EO Blog because our design team will be rolling out lots of great ideas for using them!

Something for Everyone

Travelers Notebooks are so much more than just calendars. In fact, many of the refills have no connection to time, like Lined Refills for notetaking and listmaking; Watercolor and Sketchbook Paper for drawing anywhere; Dot Grids for lettering practice, Blank Pages that can hold collages, poetry, haiku, photos or anything else you can figure out how to attach! Your TN or Planner can be whatever you want it to; especially a fun place to spark your creativity... I know mine is! Here's a look back on the first three and a half months of 2021 in my Traveler's Company Notebook from The Ink Pad. I've been using the Regular Sized TN (there's a Passport Size too) in a Binder (as opposed to a leather cover) to record my completed creative assignments Monthly; and a Weekly Diary to do some super casual memory-keeping (family milestones, the election, etc); and a little bit of list-making (tv shows we've binged, audiobooks I've devoured); but honestly, as much as anything, it's a great place to keep pretty papers, stickers and tapes that I'm not quite ready to part with. Here's a page that illustrates what I mean:

In the past few weeks, I've blogged about Hero Arts US Mailbox and Envelope Accessories Die Sets, and thus wound up with a bunch of extra postal-related diecuts in random colors. Time permitting, I could have made additional cards... but in this case, I just sort of collected them all into the "Cleanup Collage" you see above; which also makes use of an abandoned label I typed for National Card and Letter Writing Month, the MT for Pack Letters tape that was sitting on my worktable, and some of my fave Pepin Vintage Fashion Stickers.

This year I was lucky enough to grab a 2021 Monthly Diary before they sold out; but in some ways I miss the (undated) Free Monthly Diary I used last year, since the calendar pages had a little more room for embellishing. The other plus-side of the Free Monthly is that you can start and end with whatever months you choose! Rather than planning events forward, I use mine to make a little visual record of what I've done for each of my creative posts throughout the month. I always enjoy these in a nostalgic sense; but it's also practical, as it helps me see, at a glance, what products, colors and themes I've done recently. 

Technically I don't need to add the name of the months to my dated pages, but I have some excellent StencilGirl Alphabet Stencils that I love using and it lets me add another splash of color. "March" is done using Carolyn Dube's Vintage Typewriter Lowercase Stencil and February capitalized on the fact that the Emotions and Feelings Alphabet has both full-sized and tiny letters.

And of course I love to use my Karin Brushmarkers to do some handlettering. In January I paired them with some Pepin Art Forms in Nature Stickers and Tapes as well as some of the stamps, dies and stickers I used throughout the month; my MTA licensed Tape and Stickers being particular faves, but as you can see, there's a little bit of EVERYTHING! 

I hope you'll be inspired to start (or re-start!) a journaling habit and to tailor it to suit your life and creativity!!!

I've Made Cards Out of... Cards?!

We're moving in to our second week of the great Jingle Belles recycling challenge, and you still have until Wednesday night to join the fun. Check out the original post for all the details and the linky tool.

This week I took sort of an easy option and decided to see how far I could get making cards out of... well... cards; that is to say, I decided to see if I could create something new and interesting just from card fronts of older store-bought cards I've received. I started with a pile that was blue and snowy:

And finished off with three cards I quite like: 

I confess that my cards don't reflect my original plan at all; I had intended to cut the coordinating snowy card fronts into 1.5" squares and make grids out of them... only, as it turned out, I didn't actually love how that looked, so I wound up working much more loosely in layers. On the plus side, apart from a few Eyelet Outlet Pine Tree, Deer and Snowflake Brads, a little bit of sheet music and some sparkly Tree Tape, these cards are made entirely out of cards. I trimmed, distressed, stacked, stitched and embellished multiple blue-and-snowy segments of card fronts and I'm pretty happy with the results!

Be sure to check out Stephanie's beautiful card at Jingle Belles and start planning what you'll link up with us!

Envelope Envy

It can sometimes be slightly challenging to use dies that do not have a coordinating stamp set, but with Hero Arts' Envelope Accessories set, that's definitely not the case! This card is made using only the dies in the set, and apart from inking the edges I haven't even enhanced or embellished them. I have, however, made half-a-dozen additional, colorful, diecut envelopes; to which I've added Sealing Wax and Dried Flowers. You can see those on The Ink Pad Blog!

"Happiness is...

...a cup of coffee and a good book". Or, as I have interpreted it in this wish-fulfilling card, happiness is a pot of coffee, a room full of books and a few close friends! I made this fun scene using Eyelet Outlet Book Tape, Book Brads and Coffee Brads, and populated it with the adorable characters from Waffle Flower Crafts' Books and Coffee stamp set, which I was lucky enough to win from Doodlebugs.wa in the last Coffee Loving Cardmakers Blog Hop.

I stamped the sweet reading Bear, tiny Bird, left-facing Deer, right-facing Bunny and potted plant on sturdy watercolor paper and colored them with both watercolor and ordinary layers of Tombow Dualbrush Pens; with a little bit of extra shading on top via Prismacolor Pencils. Then I fussycut all of them, including the deer's antlers, which I'm not planning to do again anytime soon (or ever!); though there is a matching die set, which I was slightly kicking myself for not getting. I was disappointed that Bear's glasses were just a tiny smidgeon too big to work with our Eye Glass Brads; but I was able to add a Heart Brad to the cover of the book, swap the large stack of books that Bird is sitting on for two colorful Book Brads, replace the potted cactus with a yellow lotus flower from the Frog Brad Set and add a Coffee Brad and Funky Bee to the foreground.

I made the "Library" by affixing strips of EO Book Tape to a panel of plain white cardstock and adding a strip of skinny tape under each to work as shelves. I made a table from Hardwood Floor Tape (it's out of stock now, but we still have some great Wood Tapes); assembled the entire thing, added the fun sentiment (framed with ancient nested dies) and matted the panel on Foil Copper Tape before adding it to the front of my white A6 card. 

Of course, you could make a room setting for pretty much any character stamp you own, with just some Washi Tape as wallpaper (we have pretty much every style you could imagine!) and Eyelet Outlet Brad accessories; I hope you'll be inspired to create your own interiors!

SOS443: Plant Life

We're celebrating all things leafy at Shopping Our Stash this fortnight, so break out your stamps, dies, stickers or stencils, and get ready to have fun with foliage!

I've got loads of serious stash usage on this baby, starting with a collagey background of found and vintage papers, topped with various green oxide inks through three of my oldest foliage stencils... the left and middle sprigs are both Wendy Vecchi; the fern towards the right is TCW. Then I broke out my neglected Tim Holtz Wildflowers 2 Thinlits dies, which I used on offcuts of watercolor paper and colored with Tombows. Then I had a small problem, when my wildflowers matched my background so well that you actually could not see them. So I cut another layer of the same three flower styles from a darkish grey/green cardstock that I used as a sort of "drop shadow" behind my colorful flowers. I added some TH/Idea-Ology "Clippings" stickers as a very loose sentiment, inked the edges of the whole panel and affixed a few absolutely ancient Studio Calico woodgrain butterfly stickers. Job done!

Be sure to check out the amazing projects from my design team sisters over at SOS before linking up your own unbe-LEAF-able masterpiece!

LMFMO?!

Surely one of the best sentiment stamps of the past year comes from Picket Fence Studios' Bless Your Heart set: "LMFMO: Laughing My Freaking Mask Off" definitely sums up quite a few situations which arose in 2020 and 2021!  I've paired it with Eyelet Outlet Emotion, Mini Emotion and Mask Brads. By a happy coincidence, all of these items are available at The Ink Pad; and the card featuring them is on The Ink Pad Blog today!

Peace on EARTH DAY!

It's that time in the Jingle Belles calendar when we celebrate Earth Day (a tiny bit early, this year) by making holiday cards which feature a re-purposed, re-cycled or up-cycled element. This could be anything from re-using pretty ribbons, old greeting cards or giftwrap; making diecuts or embellies from cereal boxes or soda cans; using plastic packaging as the window of a shaker card or... well, you get the idea, right? 

I rescued the cover of this catalog in December, and since I usually save the fronts of the store-bought holiday cards I receive, I was able to find one with cardinals who look right at home in this beautiful birch tree glade. My sentiment was trimmed off another card and I matted everything on scraps of specialty cardstock and affixed them to my kraft slimline card. I had intended to add snowflake brads or sequins, but nothing seemed quite right, so I decided to stop and let the cardinals be the stars of the show.

Be sure to visit Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's beautiful card and start planning what you will link up with us this fortnight!

Did You Know?

April is National Card and Letter Writing Month! At The Ink Pad, we always want to do the WRITE thing; especially when it involves our favorite type of correspondence... snail mail! We'll be celebrating throughout the month of April, by showing off some of our favorite postal-centric products, starting with this super-fun Hero Arts US Mailbox die set! Hop over to The Ink Pad Blog for all the details!

More Alphabetical Brads!

I've completed the third section in my Brad Alphabet book, covering the letters M through P; which comprises four new pages, featuring twenty-seven Eyelet Outlet brads in twenty different styles! 

For the letter M, we've got: a trio of mischievous Monkeys from the Jungle Mix; a Mask from the Co-Vid themed Mask, Hand Sanitizer and Soap set; the Mailbox from our Mail Brads; a Mower from the Lawnmower set; and a handsome Moose Brad.

Representing the letter N: a Nutcracker, some (Music) Notes; an Anchor Brad (which I've re-named "Navy"; yes, I've allowed a bit of artistic license with descriptions, so that I'd have enough brads to cover the entire alphabet!); a stack of Novels (technically they are Book Brads); and a Compass Brad is covering Navigation. 

The letter O includes: an Oven Glove from our Cooking Brad set; some Ornaments; a (Sketched) Owl Brad; (we've got really cute colorful owls, as well); an Oak (at least I think it looks like an oak) which is part of the Summer Tree Brads; and a Onesie which technically falls under Baby Shirt, and alas the blue ones are out of stock.

For the sixteenth letter of the alphabet... aka P: a pair of pretty cool Penguins; a festive Party Hat; a slightly unseasonal Pumpkin; Popcorn from the Popcorn and Ticket set; and a Pig from our Pig and Sheep Brads.

My bookring is filling up really nicely with ATC's and I still have TEN letters to go; though when we get to Q, X and Z one suspects there will be a bit of doubling up!

I hope you'll be inspired to check out the wide variety of Eyelet Outlet Brads, I'm pretty sure we've got one or two styles that will be perfect for your next project!

Wishing You a Beautiful Day

As well as a very Happy Easter if you're celebrating today or a belated Happy Passover if you've just finished celebrating! Here's a pretty card featuring one of Anna's favorite flowers, the exotic and hearty Protea, courtesy of Hero Arts' Protea Flowers Clear Stamp Set. All of the product details and a bit about the process are on The Ink Pad Blog today.

 

Prepare to DIE(cut)!

We're still celebrating dies and punches at Jingle Belles and you have until Wednesday evening to join the fun! 

Since diecutting can result in both positive and negative images to work with (the diecut itself, as well as the hole it made) and since I always have trouble making up my mind, I've got a two-fer this week! The card to the left was made using ancient nested diamond dies to create two layered mats, which I filled with Impression Obsession's Deer Trio and Birch Trees. Then, I took the diamonds I discarded while making those frames, stacked them, and added more deer plus some Fiskars punched trees. I layered the whole thing onto an alternate background I made last week with the Hero Arts Holly Confetti die et voila, a second card!

Hop over to Jingle Belles and see what Stephanie has made, then link up your own punched or diecut masterpiece!

"To Craft of Not to Craft...

...is NEVER the question!" a fact we know very well at The Ink Pad, and so do the fine folks at Picket Fence Studios. Happily, they decided to include exactly that sentiment (plus eleven more!) in their Crafty Lifestyle Stamp Set, which I've paired with their Oh So Many Cards set and luscious Sorbet Scoops Memento Dew Drops Inks; the result is on The Ink Pad Blog today!