SOS582: Who's Who

There's a new challenge at Shopping Our Stash: for "Who's Who" we'd like you to use some sort of "person" image on your card. Man or woman... old or young... sweet or funny; all the details are up to you! Here's what I made:

My first thought was to make a collage card featuring a sewing pattern lady, so that's exactly what I did! As it turns out, the finished collage is 8x10" which is admittedly big for a card, but I found so many fun, interesting, older stash items that worked, I just kept adding them in. I worked partly thematically (Paris, nature, lace) and partly by color (white, cream, tan). There are lots of "found" papers (sheet music; an old ledger) and images from vintage books and magazines (those cool birds are from a Peterson's Field Guide Coloring Book!); but I also used most of a sheet of lace stickers (so old they don't have a package or brand name but thankfully are still perfectly sticky; and finally bunch of ancient rub-ons. The last are one of my favorite collage ingredients because, let's face it, older rub-on transfers are not always 100% reliable, are they? On a regular card that can be very disappointing, but on a maximalist collage... if they don't rub on perfectly, it just looks like part of the vintage vibe! I inked the edges and some of the ingredients with Antique Linen Distress Ink and finally matted the whole thing on textured white cardstock, then machine stitched all around the edges to absolutely guarantee that nothing will come unstuck at a later date.

SOS582: Who's Who runs until the evening of Monday, September 21st. Visit Shopping Our Stash today to see the fabulous Crew Cards; then start planning what you'll link up with us this fortnight.

Did She Say, "Collage Box"?

Yes. Yes, I did. What IS a collage box? It's a gift box that instead of being temporarily covered in wrapping paper, gets its top and bottom permanently covered in vintage paper; in this case a large scale map of Bucks and Montgomery Counties in Eastern Pennsylvania* circa 1975.

After covering both parts of the box with the map (I like Scotch Create Gluestick for this sort of operation) I added my collage bits which consist of: torn pieces of 49 and Market Sherbet Lace 4" wide washi tape; vintage South American bus tickets; vintage Red Stamps; torn sheet music and text paper; some Chinese roses and a Sewing Pattern Lady. So what's in the box?

Is it a flower? Well, kind of. It turns out that any scarf with a ruffly edge can be twirled into a flower-like shape before wrapping, as you can see. Here's a photo where it looks much more scarf-like:

This pattern is called Open Lace Skinny Scarf (or possibly Poppy Scarf) by Emily Johannes aka @emilyj.designs who has also an Etsy Shop called Girlpower Designs. I made this one sliiiiiiightly skinner than the original because I was using up two different variegated luxury yarns, paired with Lion Brand's TruBoo and I wasn't sure if I'd have enough, which... I only just barely made it to the end, so my plan to go back and add rows to the flat edge, making it less floppy had to be abandoned. 

It's very pretty though. And VERY long. Possibly not super warm but... you can't have everything, right?

Here's the box again, I used a piece of vintage sari silk to hold the box shut. If you're NOT into collage or fancy/permanent gift wrapping, I still highly recommend using non-traditional types of paper for gift wrapping: large maps, old posters, and those cool folded infographics that are sometimes tucked inside National Geographic, are all faves of mine. Even an old standby from my childhood: wrapping gifts in the comics pages from the newspaper has a fun, distinctive look that your recipient will love and are super-economical, as well! Torn fabric, tulle, sari silk, twine and yarn all make great substitutes for ribbon... and you'll be LITERALLY thinking "outside the box"!!! ♥

*Fun fact: On the left hand side of the box's top, you can see the area where my brother and his family live... but since the map is from 25+ years before the subdivision was built, not even the roads are there yet!

She's a Lady

You may already have guessed from the title that this fortnight at Shopping Our Stash we're making cards that feature a woman OR making cards for special women in our life. Which is excellent timing if you haven't quite finished making Mother's Day cards; but also flexible enough to cover lots of other situations too, such as colorful random collage cards with stickers, washi and Sewing Pattern Ladies!

In addition to some extremely elderly Jen Hadfield flower stickers, I've added ancient floral washi tape under that wide band of Pavilio White Lace Tape and used a set of turn-of-the-century Fancy Pants swirl stamps to add a little more color... which... admittedly is hard to see in the photo and it's fairly low-key irl too. That accounts for all of the "product" on these cards, but since I personally also have a HUGE supply of vintage paper, sheet music and trading stamps (the last is thanks to the amazing ninja thrifting skillz of Miss Stephanie!) so these genuinely are masterpieces of stash-shopping!

Head on over to Shopping Our Stash for more fabulous design team inspiration and a place to link your own "She's a Lady" creations.

Sequins and Sarcasm

What do you get when you combine Dyan Reavley's signature snark with super-glam Pretty Pink Posh embellies? A card that's elegant and fun ...and on The Ink Pad Blog today!