snow far, snow good

we are having "snow much fun" this week at shopping our stash; by which i mean we'd like to see cards with ♥SNOW♥ on them. since "on a card" is by far the best place for snow, imo, (being infinitely preferable to, "on the roads" or "in the forecast" for example) let's get to it, shall we?

i'm quite proud of my stash usage this week because pretty much every single item involved in both of these cards is older than my nephew matthew. who turned *10* in september! the snowman and snowflakes are the oldest, they are aaaaaaaaaaancient doodlebug stickers that i really like, but never quite knew how to use. i'm not sure i've done them proud, but i have used them up; and i've got two perfectly serviceable cards out of the venture, so i'm calling it good.

i've also used up some scraps of elderly KI memories paper and a DCWV sticker that turned out to be absolutely perfect to fill in the much too big gap of white glitter paper snow on the second card. things that are not old in this post are the aforesaid best creation white glitter paper of which i use 5 or 6 sheets every single year, mostly for snowy foregrounds... (why does no one else make a good, diecut-able, white glitter paper??!) ...and the set of trees-on-hills dies by penny black* that give instant perspective to any landscape.

why not toboggan, sled, or sleighride your way right on over to shopping our stash and see the amazing snow-centric creations by those wizards of blizzards, my SOS design team darlings?! ♥♥♥

*here's a hint about similar looking dies that come in a set: NUMBER them on the back if you don't want a depressing pile of "dang i cut the wrong one again" diecuts to accumulate in your workspace. ;)

a biggish collection of tiny collages

if you hang out with me on instagram, you'll know that my latest freestyle art obsession has been making tiny (2x3") chipboard-mounted collages, usually in sets of two or four. i'm having fun playing in a completely new way with vintage paper, rubber stamps and tape; also it's a great way to use up some of the smaller illustrations that would get lost on a big project.

the first set i made was way back in may, and featured these tiny sewing pattern ladies. any new project that starts with sewing pattern ladies can hardly help but be awesome, am i right?

some of my collages start by choosing an illustration, cutting it out, and building around it. others make use of bits that were intended for something else but not used. this is an example of the latter, and arguably the flowers are too big... but i like how they grow right out of the frame.

these tiny fish nearly got tossed out, because they're not even half an inch tall. i can see that i'm going to become an even worse hoarder now, since even TINY things work really well for this.

all of these flowers were in one cluster in the little flower book where i found them. i'm not sure why i thought they should go on a background made from a map of metropolitan baltimore, but i stand by that decision...

 

at some point i realized that even quite a big flower could work on this size of canvas, or rather canvases. 

my obsession with the "illustrated motorcars of the world" book from this summer amped waaaaaaaaaaaay back up when i discovered the cars are EXACTLY the right size for tiny collages.

playing with scale again... and with dividing the flowers in interesting places. pretty sure you'll be seeing this technique again. (and again... and again...)

♥♥♥

hope that all my american friends had an awesome thanksgiving and that my international friends are having the very best weekend of november 2017! 

baby its *GOLD* outside!

we're actually embracing ALL the metals at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ this fortnight, but whereas copper and silver are equally lovely on holiday cards, they don't work at all as puns, lol! and as it happens, i've gone for the gold this week; or rather the golds, plural, since there are five different metallics on my card! a fact i was verrrrrrry excited about, until i tried to get a decent photograph, and then let's just say NOT. SO. MUCH. so please excuse the funky angle of my pic, but honestly, life's too short you guys!!!

patterned papers: dcwv, autumn leaves, october afternoon + 2 gold embossed giftwraps that i xyroned onto cheap white cardstock to make them sturdy enough to diecut; glitter paper: american crafts POW (gold) and doodlebug (creamy white); tattered poinsettia die: tim holtz/sizzix; doily die: cheery lynn creations; glitter tape and pearl brads: eyelet outlet; adhesives: xyron, elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, sewing machine

so let's count those glittery bits, shall we: the mat of my card (which is repeated as the top layer of the big poinsettia) is a grey and gold glossy paper from a wedding stack that i have honestly used for more xmas cards than anything else; in fact the two white-on-white flourishy papers are from the same source. (if you want tone-on-tone elegance in silver, white and gold... look for wedding stacks!) there's some eyelet outlet glitter gold tape dividing the two panels and some gold-mounted pearl brads to hold the flowers together. there are two different glitter papers... gorgeous gold and a creamy white that i've never quite known what to do with because it's really too yellow for snow, unless you want to make hilarious reindeer cards. (turns out it's awesome for poinsettia layers tho!) there are two gold giftwraps (because YES, i'll save the paper off my gifts if it's beautiful and/or sparkly!) that i backed with thin white cardstock to make them strong enough for diecutting. and i think that's it, altho the diecut doily is a sort of odd golden yellow that tones in rather nicely with all of the above, i thought.

i was completely inspired by the fab current sketch saturday layout (#490):

stephanie has her own gorgeous take on holiday heavy metal... why not hop over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and check that out right this second?!

So Thankful

As we in the United States prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday tomorrow, I'm feeling especially grateful for family, friends, health, creativity, and for the Eyelet Outlet team, who are truly some of the nicest and most talented folks you could ever hope to meet!

It was impossible to resist making just one more Thanksgiving card with my favorite autumnal supplies, so I didn't even try not to, lol. This time I applied that awesome watercolor-y Wide Pumpkin Washi to plain white cardstock, added a band of Skinny Orange Tape to the top and bottom, then diecut my letters. I used an orange brush marker to ink the edges just slightly, and popped the letters up on thin strips of foam tape to get a little more dimension.

For my focal accent I stacked a Pumpkin Brad on top of a diecut pumpkin and attached a tiny yellow Mini Stitched Flower Brad and a Mini Leaf. By letting some of the brads overlap each other, it makes for a more cohesive cluster, which perfectly fills the center of a large white Paper Flower. One of my favorite "flower tricks" is to snip apart a few medium-sized green paper flower petals to use as leaves, and I love how they finish off the design.

To trim out the orange gingham patterned paper, I added Clear Bling Strips on top, and a skinny (skinny!) border of Glitter Gold Tape, set off by my favorite retro finishing touch: a border made with scallop patterned deco scissors!

Wishing the happiest of Thanksgiving Days to all of my American friends and a particularly awesome Thursday to the rest of the world! ♥♥♥

oh no it's the dreaded TIMED CHALLENGE, lol

this week at shopping our stash the challenge is to create a thank you card. but the twist (because you KNEW there HAD TO be a twist, right?!) is that you have to make it in 30 minutes!!! (and YES, you should set the timer!) i am not a fast crafter, you guys. but i did make a card in pretty close to the allotted time, and i do actually like what i made. so i'm calling this a win!

stickers: funny sticker world (critters), echo park (sun + grass), crate paper (pink scallop border), mme (alphas), michaels (tiny puffy hearts); patterned paper: my mind's eye (clouds) + echo park (polaroid); tapes: little b, love my tapes; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape

i have to admit that whereas i didn't exactly cheat... i definitely stacked the deck in my favor. i figured it'd be good to use all pre-made ingredients, so i concentrated on stickers and tape. i knew it would be a lot faster to do something i've done before than to think up an entirely new concept, so i gathered supplies to make a little scene inside a faux polaroid. i also felt it was absolutely essential to have a road map, so i grabbed the sketch half of the current fusion card challenge:

i confess that i thought about what i wanted to use in advance, and gathered most of my materials before i started the clock. i chose things that wouldn't involve very much fussy cutting and i didn't do any machine stitching. on the other hand, the lack of the latter is kind of bugging me, so there's a definite chance that i'll go back and at least stitch around the outside of the card before i actually mail this baby. ;)

hop over to SOS to see the amazing... and FAST... creations from the rest of my design team darlings! ♥

junk journal junkies unite!

i had a complete and total blast at the first meeting of paper anthology's new junk journal junkies club last night! and somewhat to my surprise* i actually got quite a bit done!

in fact i made three signatures' worth of pages, bound them together and attached them into a cover** built on top of a 10x13" mailing envelope, which i had actually made the night before, at home.

the pages are a mix of older patterned paper (mostly light cardstock weight) and specialty papers like old notebook paper, semi-transparent graph paper, deli paper, sheet music, ledger paper... well, there's a little bit of everything, really. there are loads of torn edges because i'm still in a torn edge phase, and also i had elected not to lug my guillotine trimmer with me. some of the pages have been folded horizontally or vertically, to create little pockets that i secured with washi or decorative packing tape.

in terms of productivity, one of the things that realllllllly helped me was that i had spent a bit of time earlier this week thinking about what i wanted to work on, and gathering the specific supplies for that particular project. because honestly, sometimes having too many choices is as paralyzing to me as not having enough, lol.

this morning i added some beads to the floss i used to bind my book, then tied it shut with some luscious sari silk that my junk journal idol anna shared with me. btw, she has an awesome etsy shop... just sayin... as a matter of fact, i have an etsy shop, too, called just enough stuff and there are a couple of junque journal starter kits, similar to the ones you can purchase at paper anthology in kenvil, nj. where the next meeting of junk journal junkies will be held on december 15th!***

♥♥♥♥♥

*my ability to focus is either laser-like intensity or not at all, there is no middle ground with me, lol. so sometimes when there are loads of people and action and supplies, i get more interested in the social aspect of the group, and have a lot of fun without really accomplishing much. which is fine. but it's definitely a bonus to have a great time AND be productive, as well!

**i repurposed a gift wrap sleeve i made as a demonstration in august, in order to show all the steps in this blog post right here. 

***click over to the paper anthology website to email elisabeth and reserve your space OR call the store at (973) 927-1210. ♥

same strategy, different design

we're still making holiday thank you cards at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and i'm still kind of weaseling about a bit, not yet putting on a sentiment, jussssssssssssst in case:

i've made a pair of cards again, too. because frankly when you do the tape/quilt design (the process for which i showed in detail in this post from 2011!!!) it's kind of almost EASIER to make a few than it is to just make one, because you can mix and match the triangles after you cut them apart!

i've used a whole bunch of my favorite red and green eyelet outlet tapes, though i've tried not to be too xmassy, since these will likely be sent after the holiday. i've added paper flowers and some bling, as well, but i've kept them fairly flat to be postal-friendly!

stephanie also has a fab card to show off, why not hop over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and check that out right now!