narwhals, narwhals, swimmin' in the ocean, causin' a commotion, 'cause they are so AWESOME!

i know some people sing hymns on sunday, but the narwhal song is good, too... and somewhat more pertinent as an introduction to this week's index-card-a-day output:

card 54: aquarium

here's my thought process on this one: "hmmmmm... aquarium... fish, water, coral, seaweed, pebbles, OOOOOH! NARWHAL!" so now you know. :)

(some advice from lovely husband jeff for moments like this, "just go with it")

card 55: olympics

helping out the olympic committee by redesigning the rings logo. not sure they'll have it up and running for the games next week, but i have high hopes for 2018...

card 56: text or texture

what i thought was a super-fast idea --to stamp a rainbow alphabet using 7 or 8 different letter sets-- actually took longer than any other card in this post, but it was fun, at least!

card 57: stickers

the infamous $4 pack of vellum stickers from target makes a triumphant return to a mandala near you!

card 58 (a, b and c): off prompt

when card 57 didn't quite finish off the set, i decided to make "one more card" using the rest of the stickers. turns out, it took three more cards. you can't say you don't get value for money at target, eh?

card 59: tic tac toe or hopscotch

i chose the former, and yeah, it's a looooooooooooooose translation, but i had a blast playing with stencils and ink and pens and... well, it was fun!

 card 60: sorbet

once again, more a case of "inspired by" the prompt than a real interpretation of it. but that's why they're called "prompts" and not, "assigments you must take literally, and YES, we mean you, lauren" right?

card 61: graffiti (out of order)

i deliberately saved this one 'til last because i thought it'd be the perfect vehicle with which to say a ginormous THANK YOU to tammy garcia, to my fellow ICADians, and to all the commenters, cheerleaders and bestowers of little hearts via social media; you have all helped to make this my happiest ICAD ever and i am very grateful! 

♥♥♥♥♥ 

and finally, the shot i've waited 61 days to take: the official sprawly ICAD2016, book chock full of this year's colorful, crazy, fun cards. can i get a, "WOOHOO" darlings?!

hope life is treating you well this summer sunday morning, and that your very first week of august will be full of ♥AWESOMENESS♥!

we three kings...

...which, in this case, are xmas trees! lemme essplain: this fortnight at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ we're celebrating christmas, cubed, with a little prompt we like to call, "we three kings" for which we want to see holiday cards with three of... SOMETHING. i chose three tiny trees cut from three tiny scraps of patterned paper. a bit like this:

patterned paper: pebbles, graphic 45, sweetwater, a bit of petaloo flower packaging and some vintage sheet music; white kromekote cardstock: the paper cut; snowflake stickers: american crafts; ink: colorbox; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape

once i had my sweet little trees ready to inhabit a card, i wasn't quite sure what else to do, but luckily the day was saved when i saw week #422 at sketch saturday:

if you need additional inspiration, why not check out stephanie's card at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥? 

aloha, summer!

i was pretty excited that my double rainbow card was one of the top picks in the retro rubber blog's "brads and eyelets" challenge, and even more psyched to find out that their new prompt is "summertime"... which is one of my go-to card themes, so i had to play along. here's what i made, it features two of my all-time favorite eyelet outlet items, tall palm tree brads and sun and cloud brads:

one year-old alphabet stamp set: "lili" by freckled fawn (alas, no longer available); brads: eyelet outlet; ancient and beloved pink sparkly flamingo sticker: meri meri; patterned paper: my mind's eye, american crafts; white kromekote card stock: the paper cut; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, sewing machine

my "retro rubber" in this case is my all-time favorite set of alphabet stamps, it's called "lili", i got it from freckled fawn as part of a little birthday treat/shopping binge last june. (making it only just eligible for the challenge, who ask us to use something at least a year old!) i'm really glad i splurged on it at the time, because not only do i use it constantly, but when i went back to try and find it again for someone who asked about it just a few weeks later, it was already out of stock and i've never seen it again anywhere.

i'm linking up at the atlantic hearts sketch challenge for the first time, having used this corker (#170) of a sketch:

and just a little reminder that the machine stitched border on this would qualify me (were i not a dt member, lol) to enter our "a stitch in time" challenge at shopping our stash, which will be open until next monday night, woohoo! ♥

SOS262: a stitch in time

this week's challenge at shopping our stash is pretty straight forward: we want to keep you in stiches! or rather, we want you to keep US in stitches. or at least, we want to see papercrafting projects which feature stitching. it can be hand embroidery, machine sewing, or even the ever popular faux stitching. here's what i made:

arguably the best project EVER for using up old-school paper flowers and leaves since you can combine just about any and every size, shape, color, texture, etc and get a completely different look every single time. in this case we've got a bunch of old school primas, a few bargain brand pink ones, a giant petaloo centerpiece, and a bunch of recollections and prima leaves; brad: recollections; cardstock: sei and doodlebug; adhesives: elmers gluetape (used sparingly to "tack" things down before sewing; 3m foam tape (to raise the center flower stack up a bit) and of course my valiant sewing machine, kenneth kenmore, loaded up with coats and clark heavy duty upholstery thread in white, set on the lowest stitches-per-inch setting so they really show up!

ok, yes, everybody knows i looooooove to sew on cards. i sew as a design element, and sometimes also for security, because there's nothing more depressing than a card that arrives at its destination minus its beautiful floral focal-point; or with a few of its chipboard letters laying at the bottom of the envelope. in this case, the sewing is almost entirely decorative, but i really think it adds to the mandala design. speaking of which... *HOW* is it possible that i've been "into" mandalas for at least five years, i've made punched ones, monsta ones and giant decor ones; i've even got an entire pinboard called "many mandalas" which contains examples in every conceivable media... and i've never thought to make one out of the gazzillion old-school, flat paper flowers i still have from the days when those things were an absolutely *REVOLUTIONARY* embellishment in terms of 3-dimensional coolness?? well, not to worry, i'm pretty sure i'll be making up for lost time now!

need some other ideas for incorporating stitches into your next project? check out the splendid work of the SOS dt, whose motto is, "sew far, sew good"! ♥

A Banner Day

It's my turn on the Eyelet Outlet Blog once again, where i make a shocking true confession: I have a serious obsession with washi tape... and no intention at all of doing anything about it... except enlarging my collection and making more washi-adorned craft items. Luckily, Eyelet Outlet is here to help me in this quest. Have you seen how many different varieties of tape they stock?? It's a washi-lover's dream! Here's a card that uses two of them: Pink Flower Washi and Foil Pink Dots Tape.

Did you know Eyelet Outlet has ribbon, as well? This Fruit Ribbon is one of my all-time faves. It's so summery, don't you think? But there's nothing quite as summery as a Flamingo Flatback Resin, so I had to add one of those to my card, too. It's nestled on a few Solid Color Paper Flowers, just to be cozy.

Do you love cards with banners as much as I do? There are loads of ways to make them, but imo, washi tape is hard to beat, since you can fold it right over a piece of twine and it's self adhesive! I've used the Pink Flower Washi again in just that way on this card, as well as a few happy little clouds cut from a Cloud Tape that is, alas, out of stock in the online store... but provides you with another reason to always check the Eyelet Outlet booth at your next trade show, because there are sometimes exclusive goodies! ;)

Of course with all these wonderful new products we sometimes lose track of the fact that Eyelet Outlet's first name is EYELET... and those things are still as much fun to use as the very first time I saw them being set (with a hammer!) at my LSS, years ago. I've used the good old 5mm Round Assorted Colors Pack to secure the twine between my pennants as well as to dot the "I" in "Hi".

I hope you're already having a "Banner Day" but if not, there's still time to make some cards, which will definitely cheer you up! ♥

it's the last week of JULY, people!!!

and whereas the time spent doing ICAD absolutely always flies by much more quickly than ordinary time, this year seems to be moving especially fast. of course, it's been especially fun, too, so i really have no right to whine! in fact, i think i'll post some index cards, instead:

card 47: monochromatic

as far as i'm concerned, there's only one color to have when you're only having one color... and that's HOT PINK! (obviously.) in this case, hot pink stickers, with hot pink outlining, on a hot pink background. 

card 48: aurora borealis or australis

i don't have many rules in ICAD (or life, for that matter, lol) ...except... since this is supposed to be about creative spontaneity, i tend to feel "no do-overs" is a really good policy. but even a self-imposed rule isn't really a rule until you've broken it, so i did. :) 

(even having tried several versions, however, i still don't feel like i really "cracked it" in terms of producing something that either somewhat resembled the aurora borealis OR something i really liked; but it was different and fun and a great excuse to mess around with paints all evening, so i'm ok with that.)

card 49: off-prompt

a conversation in the ICAD facebook group reminded me that it'd been aaaaaaaaaaaaages since i'd made a one staple collage. which is obviously unacceptable.

card 50: paisley

yep. that's paisley, all right.

card 51: purple or violet

a card that went back to the "no do-overs" rule and kicked its butt. b/c this is NOT what i envisioned when i sat down with a few lovely shades of color burst to watercolor some hand-drawn letters... but i just kept going and let it evolve, and i'm really glad i did!

card 52: staircase

inspired by the actual spiral staircase in my home... but in the style of m.c. escher... with colors chosen by hello kitty...

card 53: fortune

i was totally and completely stumped, until i remembered fortune cookies!!!

(and once again the day is saved... by baked goods...♥)

hope you're having the best sunday of the whole entire week, but if not, there's still time to do something FUN or creative or both! (and if you're in the northeastern united states, i hope you're keeping COOL in this heat!) ♥♥♥

lookin' sketchy

we're still rockin' stephanie's gorgeous sketch over at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and you still have plenty of time to join the fun!

my card this week is a slightly looser version of the sketch, but i hope you can still see the bones? i've played with the proportions a bit, and added the pennant mat (which i found in my "scraps" bin and re-fell in love with) but all the basic bits are really there, i promise, plus it's almost entirely red, white and pink... which coincidentally would be the colors of the flag if i ever founded my own country! :)

patterned paper: crate, love elsie/american crafts, we r memory keepers, studio calico; white kromekote: the paper cut; santa face digi from "santa cut outs no 1" by katie pertiet, designer digitals, printed on kodak premium photo paper; journal card: elle's studio; wordfetti stickers: october afternoon; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape

hop on over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ to see what stephanie has created this week and to check out the gorgeous readers' gallery!