ORANGE you glad it's Mandala Monday?! This one's bright enough to melt the rest of the weekend's snow off my driveway! :)
Michelle Ward's Stamps and Stencils designed exclusively for The Ink Pad have a great NYC vibe, but they don't necessarily need to be used only for New York themed cards and layouts. For example, the Large Hex Pattern Stencil makes a fantastic pattern that works for any occasion; and Michelle's Dance Line Stamp Set has some fabulous art deco detailing as well as the two beautiful Dance Line silhouettes AND two very useful sentiments, as well. This card is on The Ink Pad Blog today, I hope you'll head over there and read all about it!
One of my favorite sets of Wendy Vecchi Make Art Chippies embellishments is called "Beverages" and has a nice big coffee mug, a teacup and saucer, two spoons and two teabag tags. I painted the mug with Dina Wakley's gorgeous Eggplant acrylic paint and added a raised pattern with Ranger's Opaque Matte Texture Paste through the three-dot stencil pattern in Wendy's Merci and More Stamp, Die and Stencil set.
I'm very excited to be on the Ranger Blog today, showing off some brand new Wendy Vecchi Chippies in a fun (and colorful) Valentine. What are Chippies? They're sturdy, pre-primed chipboard embellishments, ready to customize with inks, stamps, stencils, pens, paints or any other media you wish. I hope you'll hop over and see the completed card and read all about it!
This fortnight at Jingle Belles, we're making holiday cards for our "True Love" (by which we mean anyone extra special) OR making a card that features hearts OR... if you dare... you could incorporate any of the gifts from The Twelve Days of Christmas, as creatively and/or tangentially as you wish; just be sure to explain how you were inspired if it isn't obvious! I decided to have a go at two out of three options, so I've put "Four Calling Birds" inside a heart!
I've been having fun playing with some brand new Wendy Vecchi Chippies from Ranger. These pre-primed chipboard embellishments are ready to customize with inks, stamps, stencils, pens, paints and more. In this case, I've used Archival Inks to tint some gorgeous foliage from the Lots of Leaves set. See?
I used (appropriately enough!) Leaf Green on the larger leaf and added a bit of shading with Fern Green around the edges. The smaller leaf is inked in Prickly Pear. I left the large scalloped frame from the Bases and Frames set the natural primed white shade it came in, and used it to surround a background made with maybe my favorite tape in Wendy's Washi Assortment 1.
I stamped the large solid flower from the Country Flowers Stamp, Die and Stencil set in Sky Blue, then added the detail stamp on top, inked in Cornflower. I stamped the flower's center separately in Sunflower and added detail with Jet Black. The sentiment, "Make a Wish" is from the Bravo set and is stamped in Night Sky.
I can never resist a pun, but for some reason they're even more appealing for Valentine's Day. If one happens to have Eyelet Outlet Frog Brads and/or Rabbit Brads, any greeting which would ordinarily read, "Happy" can now be, "Hoppy"! If one also has the amazing super-wide Sky Washi, an instant landscape can easily occur!
In this case, the answer is a really BIG mandala... drawn on black paper. Because let's face it, there is always something a little bit magical about light ink on dark paper, we cannot help but marvel a tiny bit, right? And if there is a Deco Premium Rose Gold pen as part of the equation, so much the better! They come in chisel and bullet tips; this is the latter and it lays down a beautiful seamless line of color that is entirely opaque.
I could have drawn the entire mandala in Rose Gold, but it's always more fun to mix it up, so I added in some of my favorite Posca Pens, too: Silver and Pink Metallics in the 5mm bullet tips, plus the !mm and 3mm white Poscas which I adore. I drew the entire mandala on a 7x7" sheet of black paper, then fussycut around the three large scallops and layered the results on pale pink cardstock, Black Kromekote and finally white.
We're still Getting Fit for the New Year at Jingle Belles by allocating all of our favorite sweets and treats to our holiday cards, where there are no calories to be found!
It's time for a brand new challenge at Shopping Our Stash and this time we're celebrating border punches and dies! I went with the former, because I still have quite a few of those awesome old-school devices and I realized it had been a while since I used them... so I've incorporated three of my favorites into my card.
The sweet and sparkly animals come from a patterned paper so old, I'm not sure who made it? I suspect it was Creative Imaginations, but I won't swear to it. The plaid sky, sentiment and happy sunshine are Doodlebug and newish. The border punches are (from the top down) Fiskars (on Dare 2B Artzy paper) and two Recollections; on Echo Park and Hello Kitty, respectively. This cute critter convention will very shortly be on its way to celebrate a very happy birthday with one of our grand-nieces.
Be sure to visit SOS to see what the design team has made to inspire you; then dust off those border punches and dies and get crafty with us!
Remembering the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King this Mandala Monday, “We must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future.”
Wax seals add instant elegance and nostalgia to any project, and there's seemingly no limit to the combination of papers and embellishments that coordinate well. In this case, we've got Vintage Typewriter Stickers, Classic Icon Fleur-de-Lis Wax Seals, Penny Black Juniper diecuts, Glitter Tape and scraps of sheet music. Read all about it on The Ink Pad Blog!
We're Getting Fit for the New Year at Jingle Belles by allocating all of our favorite sweets and treats to our holiday cards, instead of our tummies!
I've adorned an older Doodlebug gingerbread house sticker with a couple of candy-centric Eyelet Outlet brads and a Pearl Swirl above the chimney. The cool paper-strip background is based on an absolutely ancient, totally brilliant Card Maps sketch that I discovered lurking in my inspiration file.
Be sure to visit Jingle Belles to see what Stephanie has made, then start planning your own sweet treat of a card!
We're still showing off What Santa Brought Us at Jingle Belles, and you're still invited to come along and make a holiday card that features something new and crafty; whether it came officially from The Big Guy, or perhaps you helped him out by choosing something fun for yourself?
This week's card is admittedly a little bit of a stretch... except in our 50th state! But having received not one but TWO awesome sets of tropical flowers and foliage from Santa Stephanie, I literally could not wait to use them... so I didn't! I cut all of the pieces from Lawn Fawn's Happy Hibiscus and Tropical Leaves out of colorful scraps; fashioned an appropriately Hawaiian Holiday sentiment from stickers and attached everything to my bold and beautiful A9 card.
Head on over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's card, then start thinking about what you'll make!
*sorry about the earworm! :)
I have to confess that, in real life, I'm not overly fond of snow and ice; but... I am a huge fan of Eyelet Outlet Polar Bear Brads, for whom snow and ice are the ideal habitat, so I've tried to recreate it in card form. See?
It's the first challenge of 2022 at Shopping Our Stash and we've got some lovely new teammates, including Stephanie Severin, so I'm extra excited. This time we'd like to see cards or projects which include Something That Begins with the Letter S... so there's quite a bit of scope there... but be sure to mention your S's if they aren't obvious, k?
My card features Small, Sweet Seahorses Swimming on a Swirly Sea, in a Star-Shaped Shaker full of Sea-quins (geddit?!) over Sparkling Sand, Surrounded by Shells, Sanddollars and Starfish; with a Silly Sentiment and Strategic Stitching! For the record, the seahorses are from a Lawn Fawn mini-set (Sea Horsin' Around) that I've had for over a year and only just inked. The swirly sea paper is from Sassafras Lass... remember them? (And YES, this was from the era when they still had the "Lass" on there!) The brads and sequins are Eyelet Outlet, o'course; and the shaker is built using the two largest dies in my Nesties Stars set.
Be sure to hop over and welcome the new SOS Teammates, bid farewell to a few who are leaving and soak up all the S-based inspiration!
I'm thrilled to be a guest on the Ranger Blog today, with a tutorial for that most timely of January papercrafts: Thank You cards! I used Wendy Vecchi's "Merci and More" Stamp, Die and Stencil Set plus one or two other goodies (like the awesome Bravo set); and my new favorite color palette of Wendy's Periwinkle and Thistle Archival Inks. I'd love for you to hop over and check it out; and be sure to follow @ranger_ink and @wendyvecchi for lots more amazing ideas and inspiration!
It's the first Mandala Monday of 2022, so let's tart the year off right with some bold color:
...so it's time to start making Christmas cards!!! Ok, yes, to a civilian, that probably sounds insane; but to any papercrafter who's ever spent a big chunk of December making 50+ cards, trust me, this is a GREAT idea! So once again, at Jingle Belles, we'll be publishing a new prompt every other Friday, and Stephanie and I will each be making two cards for each. By December first (or thereabouts) we'll have at least 48 unique handmade cards; so if we're not actually finished, we'll be in excellent shape. Of course this is definitely a case where more is merrier... so we'd love it if you'd join us! No need to make a commitment or participate every single week, just jump in when you can and have fun along with us!
First up, we KNOW you have some brand new goodies you're dying to use, so break out those gifties (whether they came from Santa, or you treated yourself in the pre- or post-holiday sales!) and use them to make your first holiday card of 2022! Be sure to mention what you've used, so we can be suitably jealous!
