ICAD

Another week has passed, June is just about over, so here are the seven Index Cards I've made since the last ICAD round-up:

Day 29: Shibori/ Mandala Monday

Shibori was a prompt I originally skipped over, but this week I had an idea for a shibori-inspired Mandala Monday, so I've circled back. I used Archival Inks to make a rich blue background, then added all my petals and lines with a white Posca Pen. 

Day 28: Coastline

This is what I love about prompts, you can follow them wherever they lead, however tangential. Case in point: Today's #dyicad2026 prompt is #COASTLINE from which my mind drifted to BEACH... and then BOARDWALK... and then (obviously!) CONEY ISLAND! (Best not to think about it too hard, lol!)  I had a lot of fun using ALL my colors of Posca Pens and I love how this turned out. The only problem is, now that I have Coney Island inside my head I *really* want a Clam Roll from Nathan's!

Day 27: Crane

Cranes cut from an old, falling apart bird book. "Habitat" made of hexagons punched from various scraps of book paper, sheet music, etc. and edged with green ink. Even I don't really think these two concepts "go" together... and yet... I really love how this came out. So there.

Day 26: Parterre

A very very funky take on #parterre; really just an excuse to cut somewhat shrub-shaped pieces out of green patterned paper scraps. Non, je ne regrette rien.

Day 25: Penguin

Penguins cannot fly.

I cannot fly.

Therefore... I am a penguin.

Additional evidence: I wear A LOT of black, have a tendency towards embonpoint, love fish and have a rock collection. Yep. Penguin!

Penguin illustration, Archival Ink background, manual typewriting and machine stitching on the unlined back of an index card from the dollar store. Bonus points: This is a KING penguin on a ROYAL typewriter, wahey!!!

Day 24: Atrium

Flashing back to the #atrium prompt, which I skipped the week before last. Admittedly a tangential take but... you know... it's ICAD; and there's no better time in the whole creative year to be tangential, imo!

Day 23: Pomegranate

I skipped over #pomegranate yesterday in #dyicad2026 in favor of Mandala Monday, but then I did think of a fun take, and decided to circle back. One of my favorite things about @indexcardaday is that each year, there's at least one prompt I have to Google to find out what it is. A few years ago, @gypsy999 came up with #ogee and I became obsessed with elongated, repeating S-curve patterns. I confess that it never occurred to me to add stylized pomegranates to the mix... until now, lol!

Sketchy (Week 2)

It's the second week of our festive sketch challenge at Jingle Belles, so here's a reminder of the beautiful sketch Stephanie has devised to inspired us. Remember you can stretch, compress, flip or rotate the sketch; just make sure we can still see the bones of it! 

Here's my card:

I only have a couple of Penny Black's pre-printed Masterpieces Made Simple journal cards left, but luckily one of them was landscape oriented, because I wanted to rotate the sketch this time. I found this stencil-printed piece of white on dark blue cardstock in my "ufo" box and loved the way the colors and branches sort of echoed the background of the deer illustration. I added a strip of glitter silver tape to serve as the strong line inside the sketch, and a small glittery snowflake is swapping in for the circle piece. The tiny white pearls get a little bit lost in the white branches at the bottom left, but the ones on the top right show up well. Finally I chose a Tim Holtz Idea-Ology wordfetti sticker as my sentiment, and placed it towards the top of the snowscape scene.

JB2613: 'Twas the Sketch Before Christmas runs until next Wednesday evening, July 1st. Details and Linky Tool are over at Jingle Belles.

Garden Scene

Journal cards are a fantastic shortcut for cardmakers and Eyelet Outlet Brads make them even more beautiful. This card has twelve brads from six different sets... can you spot them all? (Hint: there are examples below the card to help you!) Check out the Handy Shopping List, below, to see if you're right.

Handy Shopping List:

Rose Brads

Colored Daisy Brads

Garden Tools Brads

Rabbit Brads

Dragonfly Brads

Female Cardinal Brads

Visit the Eyelet Outlet Online Store to find all of these selections... and so much more!

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!