JB2612: Flat Feliz Navidad

It is with a lot of excitement and (a little dread) that I announce the new prompt at Jingle Belles. For Flat Feliz Navidad 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 avoiding taping or gluing anything on. We're looking for completely flat cards this time! 

As everyone who knows me even a tiny bit will realize, this is NOT my forte. I'm the queen of lumpy, bumpy, multi-layered (and then let's mat those layers!) cards. So yes, I did a lot of surfing, googling and scrolling to get ideas. And I confess that it took me more than one try. But, eventually, I broke out the uber-cute bears (& small sentiment) from Simon Hurley's create. Skating By Stamp Set and stamped everything in Ranger's Jet Black Archival. I colored the bears with Prismacolor Pencils and added a tiny bit of Cry Baby Stellar Ink to the curve of the pond's edge, then toned it down just a little with Shadow Grey Archival. I stamped just a couple of Simon's Peel Apart Stitched Snowflakes (sadly out of print) in the sky and then forced myself to call it a day before I was tempted to add... well... lumpy, bumpy, layery things lol.

JB2612: Flat Feliz Navidad runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, June 17th, and YOU are invited to link up with us... if you dare!!!

Ranger Bold Birthday

Make-It's Bold Birthday Stamp Set and Bold Shapes Stencil definitely live up to their name. In fact, the only conceivable downside to these sets, imo, is that there are almost too many ways to use them. (For the record, this is my favorite kind of "problem"!) I'd love for you to hop over to the Ranger Project Tutorials Page and follow along as I add Bold Archival Ink Color to the mix; for a birthday card that I'm pretty sure will brighten anyone's day.

Con-GRAD-ulations!

This month, in my family, we have two nieces graduating from college, and a nephew graduating from high school. Which called for a single flexible design that could be customized for three different personalities. As it turns out, I have *NO* graduation stamps or dies. (HOW is that possible?!) But... large numeral dies and colorful alphabet stickers on notebook paper make an excellent base, and I personalized each version with lots of Eyelet Outlet Brads. Since there are 42 brads from 18 different sets across the three designs, I'm going to just mention them below in the Shopping List section!

Big Bad Grad Brad Shopping List:

Graduation Hat Brads

Sunglass Brads

School Bus Brads

Computer and Headphone Brads

Heart Brads

Book Brads

Unicorn and Rainbow Brads

Ice Cream Brads

Tall Palm Tree Brads

Dinosaur Brads

Flamingo Brads

Beach Umbrella Brads

Compass Brads

Reptile Brads

Popcorn and Ticket Brads

Mini Bee Brads

Fairy Brads

Cactus Brads

All the embellishments you need to customize YOUR next card are available at Eyelet Outlet!

SOS575: KRAFT-astic

The new challenge at Shopping Our Stash is a celebration of KRAFT cardstock, woohoo! Since this is pretty self-explanatory, I'll get right to my card: 

As you can plainly see, my card base is kraft. Perhaps less obviously, the panel under the butterfly is also kraft, but since I adorned it very enthusiastically with white Vicki Boutin 49 and Market rub-on transfers and Apree floral stickers, it's slightly less prominent than I thought it would be, lol. But that was actually the start of my card and it inspired the stack of ancient diecut butterflies, as well as the addition of white doily pieces and a bit of machine stitching. The pink panel, btw, is part of the packaging from the rub-ons, I love the way it softly echoes some of the images I used on the kraft.

SOS575: KRAFT-astic runs until the evening of Monday, June 15th. Head on over to Shopping Our Stash to see the Crew cards and link up your own KRAFT-astic masterpiece.

Happy ICAD Day

It's June first, which means it's the first day of the 2026 Index Card a Day project: 61 consecutive days of making art on index cards. Like this:

It's Monday, so of course I'm kicking off with a mandala. This one features a bunch of my favorite shades of Ranger's Archival Ink; details and lines via black Letter It Fineliners and white Posca pens.

Ombre (Again)

It's the second week of celebrating OMBRE at Jingle Bells and thus we're looking for holiday cards that feature blends or gradients of one or more colors.

This week I've taken the ultimate ombre short cut: I've diecut my tiny trees from paint chip color cards! My Perfect Pearls background has a bit of gradient to it... radiating outwards from the center; whether it's actually ombre is up for debate, but I thought it made a nice "sky" for my funky scene. I cut some snowy hills from sheet music and diecut my sentiment from another Perfect Pearls experiment that has a beautiful shade of blue so soft you admittedly can't actually see it in the photo. Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Brads and Sticky Back Pearl Bling adorn the sky; a skinny blue mat and some machine stitching complete the design.

JB2611: Ombre Wonderland runs until the evening of Wednesday, June 3rd. Link up your Ombre card(s) today!

ICAD: Title Card

The Index Card a Day project starts on Monday, June 1st; the start of 61 days of making art on... you guessed it... index cards! Our hostess, Tammy G, usually posts some entirely optional "warm Up" prompts, one of which is to make a title page for this year's cards. You obviously don't need to make a book to hold your cards, but that's how I like to store mine and I find it motivational to watch the book fill up as I add a card each day.

This sweet little bus has been sitting in my collage fodder box for agggggggggggges, just waiting to be used for something cool; and that "something" has finally arrived! Its origin is a falling apart children's dictionary that I got at a garage sale some years ago. 

I built my tiny collage on an index card divider with my initial on it; I think I'd like to finish the book with the "B" tabbed card!