We Three... Ugly Sweaters (x2)

We're still celebrating THREE's at Jingle Belles; so this fortnight you can basically choose any color palette, any layout, any theme and any products; but... we want to see a strong group of THREE...something. 

I have about half a sheet left of PhotoPlay's (appropriately named) Ugly Sweater Party patterned paper, and I must confess that although I've had several of these sheets, I've never used it as a background or in any other way than as I've used it here. I really only want to cut out the cute little sweaters and put them on cards. So much so, that I had cut out four or five sweaters to make my THREE-centric card before remembering I either had to put some aside or make two cards with three sweaters. Obviously, I chose the latter course. I used my Elizabethcraft Planner Filmstrip die to hold the sweater trios and I had planned to stamp, "Don we now our ugly sweaters" as the sentiment. Because I could have sworn I had a stamp that said that. As it turns out, either I was mistaken, OR it's been hidden away by the gremlins who also steal single socks and tupperware lids. So after a bit of searching and quite a lot of grumbling, I just formatted the text on my computer and printed it out. Which doesn't mean I won't, for the next few weeks, spend a few random minutes here and there still vaguely looking for that stamp... Obviously... 

JB2606: We THREE Kings runs until next Wednesday evening, March 18th. Head over to Jingle Belles to see the Readers' Gallery and link your own tremendous trio(s)!

Chicks and Eggs and Flowers

Spring officially begins this weekend, and Easter is just around the corner; what better time for a bold and colorful card featuring Eyelet Outlet Chick Brads, Sun and Cloud Brads, Bright Fresh Flowers and Colored Daisy Brads?

The bold background is Simon Hurley's Egg Hunt Background Stamp which I embossed with Ranger White Embossing Powder, to act as a resist for a rainbow-inspired blend of Simon Hurley Stellar Inks that match the brads reallllllly well!

Egg-cellent Easter EO Shopping List:

Chick Brads

Sun and Cloud Brads

Bright Fresh Flower Brads

Colored Daisy Brads

Eyelet Outlet makes Easter cards (and all other cards, too, actually!) easy and fun!

Chic Birthday Card Set

The exclusive new line of Make-It Clear Stamps and Stencils can ONLY be found in the Ranger Store. Today's post features a set of four minicards made with the Chic Birthday Stamp Set, Sprinkle Hearts Stencil and four of the brand new Archival Ink colors. If you'd like to see the full step-by-step photo tutorial, head on over to the Ranger Project Tutorials Page!

Bokeh Batik

One of my favorite things about working with Ranger Archival Inks is that you can do a lot of the fun little tricks I love about watercolor, but instead of working with water, you use 91% Isopropyl Alcohol. BUT... for sciencey reasons I don't entirely understand, the fact that you're using alcohol instead of water means you can be working on fairly thin paper or cardstock and it won't warp or rip or pill or otherwise hurt your substrate.

In this case, I used an ink blending tool to add all of my Archival colors, letting them overlap a bit to create new shades in between; then I flicked on LOTS of droplets of clear alcohol, over and over, blotting them each time to pick up a little color. Until I finally had this very cool effect that almost looks textured. And, as you can see, my page is not lumpy. bumpy, ripped or wrinkly. Some of the color DOES seep through to the back of the page, however, something you might like to keep in mind if you try this fun "trick".

BTW, all of the above is just one tiny little portion of information I've learned from the very awesome Wendy Vecchi, and if you aren't watching her Tip Tuesday videos on Instagram or Facebook, you are realllllly missing out!

Another Button Collage

It turns out that hand-sewing buttons onto vintage paper collages is somewhat addictive. But luckily I have A LOT more buttons (...and a lot more vintage paper for that matter...) so I can't really see a downside.

I hope your weekend is off to a good start and that before it's over, you'll find a little time to indulge in whatever crafty activity you feel compulsively drawn to right now! ♥

We Three... Kittens?!

Ok, technically, the new Jingle Belles prompt is called, "We Three Kings" and we're asking you to create a card with THREE of one element: three circles... three reindeer... three packages under the Christmas Tree... you get the picture, right? But in my case, it was three kittens, as you can see:

In addition to three adorable vintage felines, my card has a few more threes: three torn patterned paper pieces and three pieces of doily. I kept trying to add "one more thing" but nothing really seemed right, so I attached the sentiment, did a bit of machine stitching and called it good.

JB2606: We Three Kings runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, March 25th. Hop over to Jingle Belles to link your card(s)!

Bunny Hugs

Eyelet Outlet Rabbit Brads, Colored Eggs and Mini Butterflies turn sweet stamps into an adorable Easter card that's sure to make some-BUNNY's day when it arrives in their mailbox!

The stamps in question are from Simon Hurley's Easter Bunnies set and have been painted with Sand Castle and Sweet Treat Archival Inks from Ranger.

Eyelet Outlet has all the embellishments you need for all the holidays you celebrate; and the EO Blog has all the inspiration you need to use them beautifully!