Happy Hanukkah!

Hanukkah begins this evening I'm on The Ink Pad Blog, wishing you a wonderful Festival of Lights! 

Snowy Banner Wishes

We're still making holiday cards inspired by the 2021 Jingle Belles Blog Banner (hop over or scroll down for a reminder!) and you're still invited to join the fun. Here's what I made this week:

I used an ancient, beautiful Darice embossing folder to add swirly snowflakes to a piece of dark green Bo Bunny Double Dot paper, then sanded the embossing to make it stand out even more. I cut Hero Arts' Snowflake Cluster from white glitter cardstock and added Eyelet Outlet Pearls in several sizes, scattered all over.

Be sure to visit Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's beautiful card and the readers' gallery so far; then come back to link up your own masterpiece!

Happy Turkey Day!

Whether you're celebrating or not, I hope that everyone 

who sees this will have a wonderful day! 

♥♥♥ 

'Twas the Day Before Thanksgiving

Here's a happy little card focusing on one of the most popular and iconic of our Thanksgiving Day pleasures: PIE! 

Obviously I couldn't resist this sweet little slice (or the gorgeous plaid pattern!) from Doodlebug's "Pumpkin Spice" collection when I saw it at Paper Anthology, especially since I knew it would pair well with my Eyelet Outlet Pumpkin and Rolling Pin Brads! To round out the design I also added a Leaf Brad, a Sunflower, a Heart and the Oven Glove from our Cooking Set.

Wishing you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Triple Threat

This fortnight at Shopping Our Stash we challenge you to use three of... something... prominently on your card or project. I chose to use three of the adorable critters from Stampendous' "Peeking Pals" stamp set.

I paired the sweet flamingo, meerkat and ostrich with some super-cute, totally ancient Echo Park flower stickers; added a white polaroid-style frame from... uhhhhhh somewhere; and matted on a few different scraps of coordinating patterned paper. So this is a pretty good victory for miscellaneous stash usage, and a sweet birthday card for our eldest niece!

Visit SOS to see what the team have made to inspire you and then start planning your own Triple Threat!

Making Many Mandalas!

I love Rubber Stamp Tapestry's Peg Stamp Sets from The Ink Pad and at the moment my favorite is their Make a Mandala Set. RST designs all of their stamps so they're centered neatly on the peg without too much extraneous rubber; and the Make a Mandala set also has a line on the peg to show you exactly where the center of that design is... making it even easier to position each element of your mandala with perfect precision! Visit The Ink Pad Blog to read all about this set of tiny but vivid mandala cards!

A Banner Day

This fortnight at Jingle Belles we're making holiday cards inspired by this year's blog banner, which looks a bit like this:

You can choose any elements that appeal to you: the color palette, the pine trees, the sparkly letters, the snowflakes... just be sure to tell us in your post what inspired you, if it isn't obvious.

I took a little bit of all the main elements from the banner: a green, slightly grungy background flecked with snow; dark shadowy trees combined with snowy white ones; and pale glitter letters for my sentiment. It's a pretty literal translation, but I like how it turned out!

Head on over to Jingle Belles to see what Stephanie has made to inspire you, than start planning your own blog-banner-inspired masterpiece!

A Good Day

According to my favorite Stamplorations' coffee-related stamp set (designed by my lovely friend Becca Cruger for her Big Grins line) "A good day has both coffee and you"! Of course a truly GREAT day might have coffee, you, and the awesome Coffee Loving Cardmakers' Fall/Winter Blog Hop!   

The seasonal theme requirement of the Coffee Lovers' recent hops has been suspended, but we're in the midst of some beautiful fall weather here in central New Jersey, plus I had some Colorbursted collage leaves leftover from another project, so I went autumnal.

I used Becca's Literary Caffeine-ations for my sentiment, and that adorable to-go cup (which I paper pieced from appropriately colored scraps) is from a set appropriately called A Cuppa Love. By the way, Stamplorations is having a "Season of Thanksgiving" sale until November 30th with LOTS of things 25% off, so you should probably check that out!

While you're at it, hop over to the Stamplorations Blog and take a look at their current challenges, including the November Theme and Photo Prompt which inspired my choice of colors! 

Then be sure to go over and check out the cards linked up for the  Coffee Loving Cardmakers' Hop... there were already over 800 amazing cards when I added mine to the list!

Merci Bouquet Triple Play

It's probably impossible to have too many Birthday or Thank You greetings on hand, so whenever I think of a fun idea, I like to make multiple versions, if possible. Since there are plenty of different Eyelet Outlet Flower Brad styles, when I thought of "Merci Bouquet" I was spoiled for choice!

I used the same Wood Washi and Mini Ladybug Brads in all three versions, but changed up the patterned paper backgrounds to match the flower styles. For my first card I made a bouquet of Colored Daisy Brads.

My second card features our classic Bright Daisy Flower Brads, which are on sale!

My third card combines Fall Stitched Flower Brads (they come in Minis and Brights, too!) with petals cut from a green Solid Color Paper Flower to act as foliage.

Check out all of the Flower Brad styles, not to mention the Flower Tapes, in the Eyelet Outlet Online Store!

New Product: Kitta Washi Strips

I'm test driving a completely new product to The Ink Pad: King Jim Kitta Washi Tape Strips. They are actual thin, sheer, 2 x 3/8” strips of washi tape, which have a backer like stickers have. You easily peel the backer off and apply the neat strips to you project. They come in dozens of styles and are great for adding photos & ephemera to journals, Using as page flags and borders, making patterns, spelling out words and... well, I'm excited to find other creative uses, but if you'll hop over to The Ink Pad Blog, I'll show you what I've done so far:  

Baublicious!

We're still celebrating holiday ornaments at Jingle Belles and you've still got time to join the fun! This week my baubles are chipboard, from an older My Mind's Eye collection, they're dangling from Eyelet Outlet Pearl Strips, on a Graphic 45 background, and I've scattered a few EO Enamel Stars around to add extra texture.

Whether you're ornaments are made of chipboard or paper; whether they're diecut, stamped or stenciled; if they're in a box, on a tree or just dangling on your card, I hope you'll hop over to Jingle Belles and link up your Ornamental Masterpiece with us!  

Thanksgiving Vibes

Preparations for Turkey Day are well underway at our house, with the merits of various types of dressing being hotly debated, and crucial decisions regarding veggie casseroles (green bean or broccoli??) still pending. So this seemed like a good time to get out some of my favorite autumnal EO Brads and make a card.

There's nothing particularly Thanksgiving-related about this fabulous super-wide Brick Washi, but it was my starting point for colors. I added clusters of Sunflower Brads, green Mini Stitched Flowers and red Heart Pearls around my sticker sentiment and finished things off nicely with a Pumpkin Brad.

And now back to the Big Question: pumpkin pie... or apple??!

unbeLEAFable!

We've got a fun Tic-Tac-Toe challenge this fortnight at Shopping Our Stash and there are lots of options that do not include brightly colored autumn leaves, but obviously I was not going to choose any of those lol.

I went with the diagonal that starts in the top lefthand corner, which gave me Thank You + Stamps More Than 3 Years Old + Leaves, and this is what I made:

I assume the leaves and thank you sticker are pretty obvious, but for the "older stamps" I went two ways: the large Stampendous Leaf stamps (and dies) are probably four years old, the script and music stamps that I've used randomly in the background are considerably older... plus... I've used some vintage POSTAGE stamps that are from the 1960's! Because yeah, I'm like that, lol!

Be sure to head on over to SOS to see the amazing creations the design team has made to inspire you, then choose a column, row or diagonal from the board and make your own masterpiece to link up with us!

Ornamental, My Dear Watson

We're celebrating one of my all-time favorite holiday items this fortnight at Jingle Belles: we'd like to see cards that feature holiday baubles and ornaments! 

This Hero Arts Poinsettia and Ornament Die is one of my favorites because there are so many ways to use it. Often I cut it out of watercolor paper and paint the flowers, but this time I left the ornament plain and layered it over a watercolored background; then mounted the whole thing on an ancient scrap of Prima paper. White dimensional florals and tiny Eyelet Outlet pearls add extra texture and interest.

Be sure to go and see Stephanie's card at Jingle Belles and start planning what YOU will make!

How Many NYC Taxis...

...can you fit into one blog post? If the taxis are The Ink Pad's adorable Michelle Ward Taxi Stamp, the answer is SIX! The cards in question also use elements from Michelle's Skyline, Manhole Hex and Manhattan Map cling stamp sets; against a dramatic background of Distress Oxide Ink Blends.

Whole Latte Love

Brand new Iced Coffee Brads in the Eyelet Outlet Shop are definitely cause for celebration, and obviously need their very own punny card:

I couldn't resist drawing tiny kawaii faces on the fancy Iced Coffees, but of course they are perfectly awesome without such embellishment. This turned out to be quite a CAS card, as I wanted the conversation/sentiment to really stand out, so the only other thing I added was a trio of Heart Brads and a mat of Tiny Hearts Tape.

Stay tuned to the EO Blog for more awesome ideas from the Design Team!

Sunglasses Not Included

It's a super bright Mandala Monday, thanks to the bold and beautiful colors of VersaFine Clair Inks! Hop over to The Ink Pad Blog to read all about it!