have yourself a merry *LITTLE* christmas!

it seems like people either love inchies, or hate them. what do you think? i love them. stephanie loves them. so for the last couple of years we've had an inchies/twinchies fortnight at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and we're doing it again this year! this was one of those times when i almost had "too many" ideas. i know, i know, there's no such thing, really, but sometimes when my brain feels bombarded with lots of inspiration, it can be hard to focus. eventually i decided on twinchies... round ones... and after i'd made those decisions, everything came together:

(vintage: sheet music + seam binding; patterned paper: studio calico, mambi + the backing from some k and co rub-ons as the base of my twinchie circles; flowers: prima; jingle bell brads: oriental trading; evergreen clear stickers: bo bunny; music tape: freckled fawn; red berry rub-ons: kaiser craft; labels: dymo; ink: colorbox; 2" circle punch: marvy; corner rounder: we r memory keepers; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, scotch gluestick) 

for some reason i'm really LOVING neutrals right now, especially white and off-white. not sure why, exactly, but whenever possible i like to follow these little tangents, it's always interesting to see where they're going to lead!  i'm not sure you can really see where all of the ingredients i've used have wound up... they're mostly at the center of the three circles, but layered up. so i decided to take a pic in hopes of clarifying. yeah, it would've been great to snap photos as i went along, but at the time i was too immersed to even think of it; my process is not very "documentation friendly", actually, lol! :)

miss stephanie has made a remarkably cool card that i'm positive you'll enjoy seeing, so why not head over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and start planning your own bid for world inchie domination, too! ♥

SOS134: miss you

this week's challenge at shopping our stash is called "miss you". it's a great chance to make a card for someone you haven't seen for a while, which was what i originally planned to do; but at some point i took a crazy left turn and wound up with a funky hawaiian text-and-photo-based page in my art journal. i'm still not really sure *HOW* that happened, but i like the result:

(my own photoshopped hawaiian sunset picture, printed on kodak premium glossy paper; rub-on and sticker alphabets, from top to bottom: 7 gypsies, mambi, making memories (tiny glitter stickers), autumn leaves, and 3 differenet making memories fonts... hudson, providence and heidi; plus an american crafts minimarks rub-on heart)

i don't know about you, but i still have lots of rub-ons, especially rub-on alphabets, and i still really love them! as a matter of fact, i used a bunch of them at christmas, to label my gift wrapped packages, and it never fails to amuse me how much they astonish "civilians" who cannot figure out *HOW* you've attached them. "are these some kind of special stickers?" they ask doubtfully, fingering the not-quite-textural letters, "or did you WRITE this?" rub-ons are also very cool on photos, i think, again because of their seamlessness. yes, i could've gotten pretty much the same effect by putting the text on digitally, but sometimes it's just fun to play around with physical products, isn't it? i used seven sets of rub-ons and one set of very flat stickers, and i love that the text adds a fun element without covering up too much of the picture.

as far as the subject matter, yeah, i know, jeff and i were only in hawaii for three weeks, and it was two years ago; but i seriously don't think more than a month has gone by since then that one of us has not brought up a memory, a sight, a location, an activity, a food, or... well... SOMETHING from that trip that we loved and still think about. it's that kind of place, i guess. and obviously such longing is even more acute during a cold new jersey winter!  :)

something that i KNOW will warm you up, no matter how frosty your current weather, is the wonderful fast-moving high-pressure front* of inspiration emanating from my lovely SOS dt darlings, so off you go to check out the gorgeous eye candy they're created for your delight!

*we watch a lot of weather channel at our house. a lot. just sayin'...

more EAD fun in 2014?

yes, please! of course i was thrilled when the lovely amy tsuruta asked if i wanted to take part in another tribute to the late great EAD designs. this time our theme is, "something old, something new". my "something old" is the pair of chipboard brackets, which you might recognize as being verrrrrrrry similar to-- but perhaps slightly newer than-- a pair of chipboard brackets found in king tut's tomb. yeah. they are that old. :) my "something new"? it's actually this set of EAD stickerz, which the very generous miss amy was kind enough to share with me, along with a few more of her goodies, at christmas time! (my own EAD supply was admittedly beginning to dwindle slightly!) and now here's my card, which i think might just be my all-time favorite EAD design:

( stickerz: EAD designs; patterned papers: amy tangerine/american crafts, my mind's eye, prima, october afternoon; chipboard brackets (ancient... but still, imo, AWESOME) : kay and co; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape)

obviously the stickerz did most of the work, i love how the clear background ones make paper-piecing soooooo easy; and the fact that they are re-positionable means that you can try out a few ideas before you commit to a final choice. but the thing that really MAKES this card, imo, is the amazing sketch, which i found at paper playful, posted by a site called scrapping everyday miracles; though i believe it's originally a cardmaps sketch. the minute i saw it, i knew exactly how my card should look... right down to the fabulous antique brackets, lol:

speaking of awesome-looking things, i know where you can find a bunch more of them, on these blogs belonging to my fellow EAD tribute artists! there are also a few special prizes on offer, and the more blogs you comment on, the better your chances, so off you go, darlings:

Amy

Julie Smith

Julie Tucker-Wolek

June

Lauren Bergold  (yepper, that's ME!)

Rose

Stephanie 

Wendi 

old and new, redux!

i know i mentioned this over and over (and over!) again last year, but i really love that we're fortnightly rather than weekly at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥! because most of the time my problem isn't that i don't have enough ideas, it's that i have too many; and having to choose only one for any given challenge can be kind of agonizing. so it's awesome to have *TWO* shots at every single prompt throughout the year. here's my second card for "something old something new", on which i've got a couple of old things, a few new things, and two that qualify as BOTH!

(vintage: doily, and scan of vintage postcard made slightly smaller and printed on kodak premium photo paper; patterned paper: crate; tape: k and co and freckled fawn; brad: my mind's eye; florals: michaels; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

first the new things, which were part of some lovely xmas presents i received: paper from miss june, plus tape from leslie and gina; the oldies are the brad and the pink silk poinsettias (stolen from an xmas garland i bought at michaels!); as for the category of items both old and new, both came from the amazing stephanie... so they are new to me, but they're vintage... so they're old, as well: the doily and the lusciously gorgeous postcard! ok, technically, the latter is a scan of said p/c because i do also collect vintage postcards, and i couldn't quite bear to part with it permanently! :) also, making a copy allows me to scale things down just a tiny bit, so they fit better on a "normal" (in this case 6" square) card!

speaking of stephanie, of course you know she has ROCKED this idea yet again, but don't take my word for it, jump on over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ to see for yourself!

SOS133: use something new!

at shopping our stash, the only thing we love more than using up our older supplies is breaking out our BRAND NEW supplies and using some of them... preferably with a bit of older stash! which is exactly what we're asking you to do this week, and what i've done on this card:

(patterned paper: recollections, crate + vintage image from an old book and sheet music; doily from my stash; flowers off some silk dogwood stems from michaels; tape: k and co; brad: my mind's eye; pearl flourish: prima; other: marvy giant circle punch, scallop scissors; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

i've got every possible age of supplies represented here, i think: my NEW stuff consists of brand spankin' crate and recollections papers, plus some gorgeous kay and co deco tape i got for christmas; the (partial) pearl flourish and brad have been in my stash for ages; the doily and sheet music are genuine vintage; the focal image is from a distressed former library book i rescued from the 50 cent shelf, and my favorite bit... the dogwood flowers... came off some silk stems that are in a vase on my dining room table!

now i'm pretty sure that either santa brought you some goodies, or you helped him out by choosing a few for yourself in the pre- or post-xmas sales, right? but if not, i suppose you might just have to make the ultimate sacrifice and treat yourself to something lovely, and thus make you eligible to play along this week! ;) in the meantime, maybe checking out the gorgeous DT examples at SOS will give you some extra inspiration, i know that always works for me! ♥

snow day!

snow is not exactly rare here in the northeast, but the last couple of years we've had two uncharacteristically mild winters in a row-- which some of us quite liked, actually; WHY are we changing back??!-- so perhaps we're a bit out of practice. something that *IS* rare here at our house is a snow day on which even intrepid husband jeff doesn't care to venture out. we only got maybe five inches or so of the white stuff overnight, but it was on top of some ice, and accompanied this morning by strong winds, and for once that worthy fellow decided to stay at home. i'm a chicken, myself, so i was ALWAYS laying low today, but it's kind of fun to have company! he's clearing the driveway at present, and even from this distance i believe i can hear the word, "snowblower" being muttered occasionally; i suspect home depot will be seeing a little more of our money before winter's end! :)

inside the house it's a lot warmer, so this seems like the perfect time to do a little tinkering here at the old blogstead. i had made a new header over the holidays, and today i finally fitted the words on* in a way i like, so here it is:

(digital elements: taped together paper pack no 1 (at the verrrrrry back, lol) and basic tags no 1 by katie pertiet, designer digitals; multi media flowers no 1 and twiggy brush set no 1 by anna aspnes, o'scraps; birds and text from renewed spirit kit by agnes biro, design house digital; clockface from mixed elements pack no 2 by juliette kniepp, design house digital; free fonts: bohemian typewriter and cry kitty; software: adobe photoshop elements 9)

now that my blog is neatly dressed i suppose i should follow suit. i mean, what kind of responsible adult is still in her pajamas at noon? oh wait, i know that one: the COMFORTABLE kind! nevermind, darlings; let's just stay cozy today, ok? ♥♥♥

*first rule of header-making: plan the design around your blog's title, rather than trying to fit it in at the end. it's a ZILLION times easier, and will probably look better. this is a very important point that i almost always ignore and almost always regret ignoring. ah well. c'est la vie creative, non? 

let's get ready to *JINGLE*!!!

hello and welcome to 2014, i hope the new year is treating you well so far! one of the things that's made the last few years pretty awesome for me, is making my christmas cards one at a time, throughout the year, at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥! it's fun during the year because i get to see some of the best and most inspiring holiday cards being made by crafters from around the world; and it's REALLY fun in december when i am not stressfully mass-producing my cards at the last minute!

we'd love for you to join in the fun, so our first prompt of the year could not be easier; we call it something old, something new... and i bet you can guess what you need to do, right? yepper, grab something that santa brought you (or that you scooped up in the post-xmas sales!) AND something that's been in your stash for awhile, and make a lovely holiday card that features both items! but before you get going on that, check out what i made:

(vintage: christmas card and doily; patterned paper: studio calico; cardstock stickers: echo park; floral: petaloo; sparkly snowflake: martha stewart; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, scotch gluestick)

you may have guessed that the sparkly central panel is part of my "something old" since it's from a vintage christmas card. for my "something new" i've got a pair of stickers from an echo park 12x12 cardstock sticker sheet and also a petaloo red velvet floral; both of which were from crafty steals' super pre-xmas deals. my favorite part, though, is the lovely doily, which actually counts as *BOTH* "something old" and also "something new"... because it IS vintage, but it was given to me as part of stephanie's awesome christmas goodie box! nice, right?

i've done quite a loosey goosey version of the current super sketchy sunday sketch at 365 cards, but it really was the thing that inspired me, so it's only fair to give credit!

getting back to stephanie, i'm sure you want to see her gorgeous card, and also start planning your own, so why not head over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and check it out?!