More Index Cards? Yup.

Time for the past week's ICAD, in reverse order, starting with today... aka... Mandala Monday!

Day 22: Off-Prompt

I haven't made a sticker mandala in a bit, so this was a lot of fun. For the limited space of an index card, it's definitely better to choose smaller stickers; luckily, I can never resist those sheets of tiny kawaii stickers, and these little puffy unicorns were perfect. I also used some rainbows, and a cute donut for the center; but for every "themed" sticker, there are a bunch of circles, triangles and hearts filling in the spaces and creating a nice base for the fancier ones to shine!

Day 21: Moon

I've gone very literal this time and combined part of a moon map… an astrological calendar… a moonflower… and my new favorite quote.

Day 20: Strata or Stripes

Or, in this case, Strata WITH Stripes... and Stitching!

Day 19: Liminal Space

From Merriam-Webster: Liminal is a word for the in-between. It describes states, times, spaces, etc., that exist at a point of change—a metaphorical threshold—as in “the liminal zone between sleep and wakefulness.” The idea of a threshold is at the word’s root; it comes from Latin limen, meaning “threshold.” Limen has served as the basis for a number of other English words, including eliminate (“to cast out”), sublime (“lofty in conception or expression”), preliminary (“introductory”), and the woefully underused postliminary (“subsequent”).

Woohoo, here's my third (so far!) and favorite (so far!) One-Staple Collage of #dyicad2026 and I'm pretty pleased with how many (admittedly loose) interpretations of liminal space I've built into it; and also with the shapes of my stacked items, which have managed to use the physical space of the index card pretty well. 

Day 18: L'Elephante (Bon Jour!)

Apparently, it's my week to paperpiece cute animals? I hadn't planned to do two in a row, but that's what happened, and since a big part of the @indexcardaday fun for me is letting myself explore whatever appealing rabbit holes present themselves... I'm just going with it.  

Animal Safety Tip: IRL, it's probably a bad idea to allow elephants, however adorable, near rabbit holes, as this could be dangerous to the rabbits. (This is my attempt at a National Park Service style of funny animal caption... I think I need more practice. In the meantime, if you're not following @nationalparkservice you are not only missing really fun captions, but also great photography and loads of fascinating nature facts. So now you know.) 

Day 17: Off-Prompt

This is Francis the Fanciful Fox; handcut and pieced from scraps of patterned paper. He and I are off-prompt on Day 17 of #diycad2026 and you can find out more about the Index Card a Day Creative Challenge at @indexcardaday or @gypsy999 or both!

Day 16: Fig

Last year, our kind neighbor gave us a sprouted cutting from her fig tree (the fruit of which she generously shares with us each year) and we tended it all summer; cut it back in the fall; put it in the cool, dark cellar all winter; then brought it out in the Spring. And whaddaya know? Newton (the only name for a pet fig, imo!) survived and started getting leaves right away this Spring; he’s already grown bigger than last year and has lots more leaves, as you can see in the photo. We’re hoping to plant him outdoors at the end of the summer, then cover and wrap when the temps go down in the fall.

JB2613: 'Twas the Sketch Before Christmas

One of my favorite prompts each Jingle Belles year is the Sketch Challenge because the sketch is always devised by Stephanie and it's always awesome. And guess what? This one is no exception! See?

You can stretch, smoosh, flip or rotate the sketch; just make sure we can see "the bones"! Here's what I made:

I started by embossing Hero Arts' Christmas Rose in white on kraft cardstock; then colored the blooms with Prismacolor Pencils. I trimmed the panel to slightly smaller than journal card size, and matted on a scrap of shimmery hot pink cardstock. The background of the sketch is composed of three coordinating papers: the top and border are actually giftwrap I had saved and backed with thin cardstock; the pink stripey paper is ancient Kaisercraft. I did some machine stitching, punched a circular sentiment from another journal card, added some Eyelet Outlet White Matte Enamel Dots and called it a day. I've been very nearly 100% literal in my interpretation of the sketch, though I did have to move the sentiment circle as it was covering up too much of my fancy coloring!

JB2613: 'Twas the Sketch Before Christmas runs until the evening of Wednesday, July 1st. Link your cards at Jingle Belles.

CELEBRATE!

Is it possible to add too many Eyelet Outlet Brads to one 6" square birthday card? Nope. Colorful squares and alphabet diecuts or stickers make a fun base that lets you customize a greeting with brads representing all the things your friends and family members love! See the handy shopping list below for the names (and links to) every one of the brads on this card.

Handy Shopping List:

Unicorn and Rainbow Brads

Mini Bee Brads

Hippo Brads

Heart Brads

Candle Brads

Emotion Brads

Party Hat Brads

Puppy Brads

Cupcake Swirl Brads

Mini Ladybug Brads

Gnome 2 Brads

Pinata Brads

Tropical Bird Brads

Believe it or not, the Eyelet Outlet Store has many, MANY more styles than are listed and shown here. You should probably go check it out!

SOS576: Summertime...

...and the living is: rather muggy, actually; at least it is here in central New Jersey at the moment. But not all of summer will be 90f and humid (...hopefullly...) so this fortnight at Shopping Our Stash we're celebrating SUMMERTIME in card form. And therefore, we'd love for you to make something that captures something you'd see or experience in that season.

My card started out beachy... (growing up in the Philadelphia suburbs, we spent many summer vacations in Wildwood, NJ; decades before "Jersey Shore" was a tv show, lol) ...so that vibe is something I think of immediately when considering Summertime. Thus I've got squares of beachy and oceany paper, plus sand dollars from Eyelet Outlet's Sea Shore Brad set. As I worked, the vibe strayed into Hawaiian territory, with yellow hibiscus flowers and tropical foliage, thanks to Lawn Fawn's Tropical Leaves and Happy Hibiscus die sets. Once that occurred, I decided "aloha" was the correct sentiment, so I diecut it from tropical paper using Altenew's Bold Alphas. 

SOS576: Summertime runs until the evening of Monday, June 29th. Visit Shopping Our Stash to see our Crew's inspiring takes on this challenge and start planning what you'll link up with us!

Index Card Round-Up

Another week of Index Card a Day (ICAD) has flown past and here are my cards, in reverse order:

Day 15: Triple Threat Mandala Monday (Off-Prompt)

This is the slowest "fast cheat" ever, lol. Lemme essplain; no there's too much... lemme sum up*: This mandala has three layers, each made on different index cards, from previous years. They were abandoned midway through due to some aspect to them I didn't love at the time. Sometimes I throw away such experiments; but sometimes I save them, because I like the basic idea and want to revisit it. In this case I like the round center "flower" with the stripey petals, but didn't like the next round of the original mandala. On the blue card, I loved the ruffles but not the original center, and I hadn't given it any background. On the bottom layer I liked the way my stencil-printed flowers kind of peter out, I like the colors... honestly I'm not sure why this didn't get posted when I made it, but whatever. So I cut away everything I didn't like and layered the rest together et voila! A two year + ten minute mandala!!!

*(Because who can resist a completely gratuitous/ random Inigo Montoya reference?! Not me.)

Day 14: Serene (One-Staple Collage)

Here's a collage that I intentionally built around the color blue. I mention "intentionally" because, as it turns out, a lot of my collages are subconsciously inspired by a color, but I'm not necessarily aware of that while working. This time I decided that blue was a #SERENE color and proceeded accordingly. All of the elements except the lotus-y flower were already cut or torn and laying on my work table or in my collage fodder box. This was going to be a regular collage and not a one-staple collage* because I honestly didn't think I could attach everything securely with a single staple but... as it turns out... I could! So here's my second OSC for 2026-- so far!

Day 13: Lucky

I had an entirely different idea in mind for the #LUCKY prompt, but when I stumbled upon this Cormac McCarthy quote, a day after randomly cutting out funky dice from an old, falling-apart book, it seemed pretty serendipitous. I genuinely believe that there are times when NOT getting what you want is the best thing that could possibly happen to you.

Day 12: Orchestra

Somewhere in the world, I'm sure there are folks who don't love the art of Richard Scarry and didn't have a childhood in which they adored books with worms driving apple-shaped cars and rabbits conducting piccolo-playing mice. But since I am definitely not that person, here is my unapologetically nostalgic card for the Day 12 #dyicad29026 (optional) prompt of ORCHESTRA. 

Day 11: Coneflower

The last few years of ICAD I've been very much into handcutting and paper-piecing... and apparently that trend continues. I think I may have given my coneflowers a few too many petals, and possibly only the colors and foliage are keeping them from looking like very fancy shuttlecocks... but... this was fun to make!

Day 10: Birch or Gingko

I just unearthed this cute little mermaid scale stamp and realized that it's pretty close to the shape of a gingko leaf; so I stamped the unlined back of a white index card with lots of beautiful green shades of  Simon Hurley Stellar Ink, drew a gingko-ish shape inside each, and decided to LEAF it at that!  (K sorry, but I can literally never resist a diabolical pun.)

Day 9: Charm

Reading the word, "charm" my first thought was of those little milagros that you find in California and Mexico, often studding a Sacred Heart, as tokens of prayers for healing or gratitude. So I decided to paper-piece my own colorful little version. I used silver metal brads instead of actual charms, for ease of attachment; and also to reduce weight. Additionally, I built the whole thing on an index card divider for extra strength.

♥♥♥

What exactly IS the Index Card a Day Creative Challenge? I'm so glad you asked! It's 61 consecutive days of making art on index cards. This is the 16th annual event, devised and hosted by the divine Tammy G aka @gypsy999 and a time of great inspiration and creativity for all, from June 1 to July 31. But honestly, there's NO bad time to ICAD, so if you're just seeing this now and think it sounds fun: JUMP IN, everyone is welcome! Check out @indexcardaday on Instagram for more info. 

Flatlands (Week 2)

Just a reminder that for this fortnight's Flat Feliz Navidad prompt at Jingle Belles, we're asking that you make a one layer (some call it "no layer") card; which means that everything should be directly on the card base, with no additional layers on top of that. If you're not sure, you can't go wrong by NOT taping or gluing anything on. We're looking for completely flat cards this time! Which is quite challenging for some of us, but a great skill to practice periodically.

This week, I got out my Simon Hurley Bold Holiday Blooms background stamp. It’s one of the great Ranger "Peel Apart" stamps that you can use either as a whole 6x6 background; or remove some of the flowers out and stamp them on their own; which is what I’ve done this time. I stamped the big poinsettias in Simon’s Prom Queen Stellar Ink; and stamped the smaller ones in Rosy Cheeks. I’ve got a small branch from Penny Black’s Nature’s Garlands set; and a sentiment from Taylored Expressions’ Flip the Snowflake set. When I finished stamping, I added some big and small dots with my Zig Dot Markers, et voila! Job done.

This challenge runs until next Wednesday evening, June 17th. Link up your fabulous flat cards at Jingle Belles!

EGG-cellent Dad

Eyelet Outlet Bacon, Egg and Toast Brads are NOT just for breakfast anymore! Add them to a funny, punny Father's Day card, or any other EGG-cellent occasion!

EGG-cellent Shopping List

Bacon, Egg and Toast Brads

Heart Enamels

Visit the Eyelet Outlet Store to see the amazing selection of brads, bling, tapes and enamels; and be sure to check out the very inspiring Idea Gallery too!