Bloomin' Beautiful

Is it just me or do Sunflowers seem to perfectly capture the transition between summer and fall? I especially love Eyelet Outlet Sunflower Brads and surely there's nothing better to pair them with than this gorgeous new extra-wide Sunflower Washi Tape? Though admittedly, the bright autumnal Sunflower Washi and Sunflower Glitter Tape are also quite lovely. I scattered a few tiny gold Star Sequins around, (because Sequins, imo, are ALWAYS a good idea!) and my flat, floral card is ready to mail.

If sunflowers aren't your thing, I'm pretty confident we've got one or two other items in the Eyelet Outlet Online Store that will appeal. And don't forget to be on the lookout for the EO Booth at a tradeshow near you!

SOS478: Animal Antics

For the new challenge at Shopping Our Stash we'd like to see animals acting like humans, so break out your baking mice, cycling cats and driving reindeer and get to work! Personally, I'm partial to bears that read, like Big Bear does in my Waffle Flower Books and Coffee Stamp Set:

Someday, I'll make a card with this set which doesn't feature Eyelet Outlet Book Tape as the background. I thought *this* might actually be that occasion, but as I was sorting through a pile of miscellaneous stuff, I came across a panel of white cardstock that already had the Book Tape neatly lined up on it, which seemed like a sign... so I just went with it. Quite a while ago, I had formatted my favorite Groucho Marx quote in a fun typewriter font and it was just the right size for this slightly-larger-than-A2 panel; so I printed it and used an ancient Nestabilities Label Die on it. I colored the cute critters and a few accessories with "base coats" of Tombow Dualbrush Pens in the lightest shades, then added a little bit of shading with my Prismacolor Pencils. Scraps of older woodgrain paper (Photoplay, I think; or possibly Echo Park?) plus EO Book and Waterlily Brads polish off the scene.

There's lots of Animal Antic inspiration awaiting you at SOS, I hope you'll hop over and check out the awesome cards that the Crew have made!

Flashy, Splashy Mandala Monday

I've been shamefully neglecting my Dina Wakley MEdia Blue Edition Journal, and this page isn't nearly mixed media enough to do it justice. But I had a lot of fun blending (and blending and blending) lots of blue and green shades of Distress Oxide Inks, both wet and dry, on one of the super-heavyweight cotton rag paper pages, then flicking it with White Gloss Spray and adding outlines. I almost feel like this needs... one... more... thing...; so if you see it again in a few weeks' time, act surprised, k?

Uncharted Mariner, Tumbled Glass, Salvaged Patina, Cracked Pistachio Twisted Citron 

and Squeezed Lemonade Distress Oxides; Black Letter It Fineliner; White .7 Posca Paint Pen

 

NEW Class at Paper Anthology

What are you doing on September 10th... or September 12th... or October 3rd? Because I'm going to be playing with all my favorite Wendy Vecchi goodies at Paper Anthology and I'd love for you to join me!

How Do You Doodle? (Hint: With Stamps!)

Join me for a fun and colorful class that features three of Wendy Vecchi’s newest MAKE ART Stamp Sets: Doodle Town, Doodle Celebration and Floral Doodles; as well as some older Studio 490 goodies like her Simply Stripes Background, Thank You Stamp, Die and Stencil Set, Rectangle Grate Stencil and Rectangular Stitching Template. We’ll “watercolor” with Archival Inks, paint and blend with Liquid Pearls, do a little hand-stitching and quite a bit of fussycutting. 

Click the link above for all the details!

Walking in a Vintage Wonderland

This fortnight at Jingle Belles we're making holiday cards with a vintage or retro vibe. You can incorporate actual vintage paper, sheet music, postcards and the like: OR you can use reproductions of the same; OR you can opt for using one of the many beautiful vintage-style stamps or paper lines available, as I have done here. 

I've used a fun retro 1950's style journal card from Authentique (one of my faves for a vintage vibe; Graphic 45 and Carta Bella are good too!) with coordinating distressed gingham background, an ancient paper poinsettia, 7 Gypsies velvet leaves and an MME brad that might have been purchased during the last century. The fun and snarky sentiment came from another journal card and the ribbon, which is fairly new, from Paper Anthology, was impossible to resist because how often do you get to put red AND green gingham on the same card?!

Be sure to visit Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's amazing vintage collage card and check out the fun little prize, which just happens to be from my own Etsy Shop, Just Enough Stuff!

Best Fishes

I've made a "Best Fishes" birthday card for my brother nearly every year for probably a decade. But this version miiiiight be my favorite, since it features a background made of Ocean Washi, a sentiment diecut from Wood Tape backed with scraps of cardstock, and in the starring role are our Eyelet Outlet Fish Brads (they're on sale!), plus some of the Trout from the Trout and Bass set.

Did you know that there's an EO Fish Stamp Set, as well? Plus cute and colorful Fish Brads, Fishing Lures, Fishing Poles and several styles of Fish Tape! Check out all of the Fishy Goodness at Eyelet Outlet!

Paper Pieced Daffodil Card

The other day I set out to make a special card for a daffodil-loving friend, and discovered --much to my surprise-- that I literally do not own ONE single daffodil-related item?! No stamps, no diecuts, no stickers; I couldn't even find a nice sized daffodil illustration in my collection of falling-apart collage books. What to do? I searched for a simple clip art image of daffodils, printed it out, and used it as a template with scraps of patterned paper.

I stapled the flowers to some yellow gingham paper, and cut out around the outside lines. I set those pieces aside, and stapled the clip art flowers to some dotty orange paper, and cut out around the centers. I glued the centers to the flowers and using the clipart as a guide, I outlined all the petals and centers with a fine-tipped black pen; adding shading with a darker orange pen. Since the foliage on daffodils is pretty straightforward, I just doodled some stems and leaves of various heights onto green scraps and cut them out. Then I arranged everything on a Nestabilities Label Shape diecut, added a mat, and machine-stitched around the whole thing.

This is probably not something I'd attempt with... say... a gazzillion-petaled hydrangea, but for simple shapes it's a fun and easy method that lets you make a completely original card!

Going Dotty

Mandala Monday has come around again, and I'm enjoying the wide open spaces of my Canson Mixed Media Sketchbook and the colorful fun of Zig Clean Color Dot Markers!

 

Play It Again, Skinny Santa

We're still making slimline holiday cards at Jingle Belles with our lovely friend, Lela Meinke, and we'd love for you to join the fun!* Here's what I made this week:

This is one of the fastest cards I've made all year, because I totally "cheated" and used a bunch of tags from Photoplay's North Pole Trading Co Cardstock Ephemera collection. Since all the pieces were specifically designed to go together, it saved me a bunch of time finding and coordinating elements! I just added a few Eyelet Outlet Brads (a Candy Cane and a Sleigh) plus a few strips of Washi Tape (Vertical Red Tree, Heart Tape and Skinny Glitter Gold to be precise) and called it a day.

Hop over to Jingle Belles to see Lela's and Stephanie's beautiful slimline designs and start planning what you'll link up with us this time!

*There's a little Slimline-Centric prize for a random cardmaker; you know, if you like that sorta thing? 

Holiday Stamps, All-Occasion Card!

As you know, I make Christmas cards all year round, and I often use non-holiday items in my holiday cards; but I don't think I've ever done the reverse. But since Wendy Vecchi's Doodle Holiday and Doodle Christmas Stamp Sets are super-cute and super-flexible, I was totally inspired to use them for a not-at-all-massy type of project; and today on the Ranger Blog, I'm happy to show you, step-by-step, how I created an entire garden, in card form. I'd love for you to jump over there and check it out! 

HB to a T!

Here's a really fun and EASY birthday card idea that can be adapted to use your favorite Eyelet Outlet Brads and Tapes, customized for any recipient! In this case, I used a bunch of older birthday themed brads and the best news of all is that a lot of them are ON SALE! Including Pastel Balloon Brads, Birthday Sock Monkeys, Lollipop Brads and Cupcakes. I've also used Candle Brads, Party Hats and Bright Balloon Brads. My background is made from Wide Calendar Tape and my sentiment is Happy Birthday Washi. 

The tiny shirts were made with a set of nested T-Shirt dies and a bunch of colorful paper scraps, but you could use any small punch or die of a similar size: hearts, stars and tag shapes, for example, would be really fun! And I'm quite sure you can find the perfect Eyelet Outlet Brad and Tape combination for EVERYONE on your birthday list!

SOS477: Back to Books

Since we're heading into "Back to School" territory, this fortnight's challenge at Shopping Our Stash is to create a book- or school-themed project OR use book pages in your design. I went with (surprise!!!) the latter, and used it as an excuse to make a few very random A6 collage cards.

In case you're thinking there's no actual "product" involved in these, I should point out that over my bases of torn book paper I've layered postage stamp and ephemera stickers from the remains of about six different (ancient!) sheets; White Lace Tape (from the late, great Ink Pad); and swirly, lacy cream colored stickers I found deeeeeeeeeeeeep in my stash. BTW, those cool acetate butterflies are stickers as well, though I glue-sticked them flat to the cards instead of using their center-only adhesive and bending up their wings, as the makers intended. Each collage has inked edges and a coordinating cardstock mat. I've machine-stitched the collages onto the cards, which looks pretty, but also guarantees that the sticker and tape edges won't curl up from being handled.

I hope you'll check out all of the beautiful, inspiring cards from the SOS Crew, then start planning what you'll link up with us this time.

It's Mandala Monday Once Again

...and this sticker mandala is inspired by my favorite guilty pleasure tv show, I call this one, "Only Murders in the Mandala" and pay tribute to Mabel, Alice, Bunny (& Bunny's Mom... how great is Shirley MacLaine?!) Sazz, Lucy, Jan and my very favorite character, Detective Williams. Have an awesome week everyone! ♥

Hey Skinny Santa

We're so lucky to have awesome friends at Jingle Belles. A few weeks ago, when our pal Lela Meinke came across a new-to-us holiday song, "Hey Skinny Santa" by JD McPherson she emailed us the video and the brilliant idea of using it as inspiration to make SLIMLINE holiday cards this fortnight! So that's what we're going to do!

I have a lot of washi tape. No really, even by crafty/hoardy standards, I have A LOT of washi tape. So when I started to think about this challenge, I thought it would be a good idea to make a dent in my older tape supply by making my slimline card panel out of tape. But then I had to decide whether to go with lots of red tapes, with hints of aqua; or lots of aqua and green tapes, with hints of red. In these situations, I've often found that making a decision can take longer than just doing both... so I just did both. I mounted both panels on coordinating cardstock, found a couple of fun Lawn Fawn tags to augment with Eyelet Outlet Brads (Holly and Cardinals, to be precise) did a tiny bit of machine stitching and called it a day.

Won't you join the Skinny Santa fun with us at Jingle Belles? Just make a slimline holiday card and link it up today!

Wide Washi Sentiment

I don't think I've ever used the same set of products two weeks in a row, but after I made the Dog Days of Summer card last week, I had a brainstorm about using the combination of Wide Sky Washi and Grass Tape that made up the background with one of my chunkier sets of alphabet dies and making the sentiment BE the scene. So that's what I did:

I neatly applied a piece of Sky Tape to plain white cardstock, then slightly overlapped the Grass Tape on top. I used my Altenew Bold Alpha dies to cut out the word, "Happy" and added White Daisy Brads and a sweet Mini Ladybug to the scene. I applied multiple strips of Brick Tape to another panel of cardstock, making it larger than I needed to mat the first panel, so that I'd have enough extra to cut the word, "Birthday" using my Lawn Fawn Henry's ABCs dies. 

To get extra mileage out of your favorite Eyelet Outlet supplies, why not try reversing the way you usually use them... in this case, bring the background into the foreground... and see what happens?!

Hello, Sketchbook!

It's a Wide Horizons Mandala Monday as I jump back into my 7x10" sketchbook after two months working on 3 x 5" index cards. This mandala morphed itself out of a mistake: as I started to softly ink the rings, the edge of my fingertip dauber caught the paper and made a big dark streak. I thought about flipping over the page, but then I decided to add streaks to some of the other rings et voila... it turned out way cooler than my intention of a smoothly blended pastel rainbow. Chalk one up for serendipity, it's a nice way to start another hot (HOT!) summer week!

Streaky rings of Distress Oxide Inks in: Tumbled Glass, Salvaged Patina, Cracked Pistachio, Squeezed Lemonade, Dried Marigold, Spun Sugar and Saltwater Taffy; Lines added with Black Letter It Fineliners; White Posca Pen details.

We're Singing the Blues...

...but in a happy way this fortnight at Jingle Belles, we're channeling our inner Elvis and making "Blue Christmas" cards; we'd love for you to join the fun!

Last week Stephanie made this extraordinarily lovely card using gel prints and she inspired me to get out my stash of prints and see what I could come up with. I used my Tim Holtz/Sizzix Mixed Media Christmas Dies to cut the holly leaf cluster out of the center of the panel, outlined and backed it with white. For a focal point I stacked a peacock blue poinsettia on top of a white one and secured it with an ancient blue bejewelled snowflake brad of unknown origins. 

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

Would This Be...

...a good time for one more Wendy Vecchi "Christmas in July" card? Ok, yes, technically, it's August now, but I couldn't resist using Wendy's awesome holiday themed items from the July Release, including her Doodle Christmas Stamp Set, Statements Chippies, plus Red Geranium and Fern Liquid Pearls. I've used the latter in THREE different ways on this fun and funky card, which is featured on the Ranger Blog today. I hope you'll hop over and read all about it! 

Dog Days of Summer

The best cure for a "ruff" day is a lovely handmade card landing in one's mailbox; not for any particular reason, just because the sender was thinking of you! This one has an extra helping of cuteness thanks to our Eyelet Outlet Puppy Brads and a background made from two strips of extra wide Sky Washi and one of Grass Tape. A sweet Butterfly Brad has flown in to see what's going on.

Check out all of the beautiful new Washi Tapes in the Eyelet Outlet Store; they're the ones at the top of the page with an asterisk next to each!

SOS 476: She Sells Seashells

It's a SHORE thing this fortnight at Shopping Our Stash because this time we'd like to see cards and projects that incorporate anything to do with sea, ocean, beach, shells... you get the idea, right? Since I'll take any excuse to bring out some of my older but still beloved Lawn Fawn sets, especially Critters in the Sea, this seemed like a good time to do so.

I've gotten better (and a tiny bit faster, thankfully) at coloring, but I really love paper piecing this set ...and it's an excellent way to use up scraps, of which I have MANY... so that's what I did. I couldn't resist (didn't even try to!) bringing in my (slightly newer) Lawn Fawn Axolotl and Sea Horses; I drew and fussy-cut my own strands of kelp; and chose a few oceany Eyelet Outlet Brad Styles (Seashore, Sandcastle and Shell Corner) to set the scene. Oh and YES, the orange border was fashioned using my absolutely ancient scallopy deco scissors, purchased at a big box store in approximately 1997, which I think you'll agree constitutes Stash-Shopping to a fairly heroic degree!

Be sure to visit Shopping Our Stash to SEA all of the amazing Design Team cards, then come out of your SHELL and join the fun by linking up with us this fortnight!

The Last Round-up

...of 2022's ICAD cards. What? It's August already? Boy is this summer flying by! It seems like only yesterday it was June first and I had a brand new Index Card a Day book that was colorful, but flat and empty:

And now, just look at it:

Here are the last week's cards, in reverse order, starting with today's bonus Mandala Monday:

Day 62: Mandala Monday

Ok, technically, ICAD ended yesterday, with my 61st card, but I couldn't resist just one more super-collagey mandala!

Day 61: Prism

Slightly tangential take on the prompt, as I chose to omit the actual prism and go right for the rainbow colors it would produce. And then doodle on them. Obviously.

Day 60: Happiness

Happiness is cutting fishy shapes out of paper scraps and gluing them onto an index card. Fact.

Day 59: Clean Up Collage

Park your tiny car collage in the tiny collage garage.

(After... that is... you park all the loose bits of collage fodder from your worktable onto one card, in a fairly random sort of way!)

Day 58: Off Prompt

 I feel like this collage needs one… more… thing…; but since I couldn't figure it out in time, I posted it anyway. ICAD is like that!

Day 57: Luminous

Neon yellow card plus bright green Tombows. I was going for leafy zendoodle and wound up with ultra mod Jack and the Beanstalk...

Day 56: Orange

I like drawing hibiscuses. I had planned to blend the color bands into each other, but in the end, I sort of liked the funky stripey look, so I left it.

♥♥♥

And thus another year of ICAD is concluded! A gigantic THANK YOU to the very awesome and delightful Tammy Garcia for devising and hosting this TWELFTH year of Index Card a Day festivities. Be sure to check in with her throughout the rest of the year, because she's always cooking up ideas, prompts, tutorials, classes, zines and more. If you're looking for inspiration, Daisy Yellow Art is the perfect place to start!