Sketchmas Continues

At Jingle Belles, we're still making holiday cards based on Stephanie's awesome card sketch (scroll down to see!) and as always, you're invited to join us!

This week I rotated the sketch, and placed my focal point slightly off center. I also went a bit mad for plaid, with two different bold green varieties that match surprisingly well considering that they are older scraps from different companies. I trimmed down an American Crafts journal card and overlapped it on one of my oldest dies (Sizzix's Tree, Christmas #2); added some Eyelet Outlet Red Snowflake Bling, Red Star Sequins and a Poinsettia Brad, and called it a (holi)day! 

Visit us at Jingle Belles for more inspiration and then join us in getting a jump on holiday cardmaking!

Oh Deer!

The new Eyelet Outlet Brads just get better and better, don't you think? Today's card features the Deer from our new vintage-inspired Santa and Deer set, as well as the Snowy Tree Brads. 

Of course, the new items pair really well with the older ones, too! Such as Holly Brads, Heart Pearls, two styles of Tree Tape, Wood Washi, Sparkle White Glitter Tape and Glitter White Enamel Dots!

There's lots more cardmaking inspiration on the Eyelet Outlet Blog and in the gallery at the Online Store, as well as our Facebook Fan Group and Instagram pages!

Un-be-LEAF-able!

This fortnight's challenge at Shopping Our Stash is called, "Leaf Me Alone" and (as you've no doubt already guessed) involves adding some foliage to your card. In September, that often means colorful autumn leaves; a category that I truly LOVE; but... as it happens... I've recently made a couple of autumn leaf projects. So this time I went totally tropical!!!

Knowing that I love diecutting, foliage and Hawaiiana, Stephanie gave me Lawn Fawn's Tropical Leaves and Happy Hibiscus die sets last year, so it was a bit of a no-brainer that I'd employ them for this challenge. When using standalone dies, I often choose papers from my watercolor or gelprint boxes... the places I stash panels or pages I've made using up leftover wet media. In this case, in the watercolor box, not only did I find pre-painted green, fuchsia and yellow watercolor paper; I also discovered the leafy stitched background panel, as well! I have no idea when I made that, or WHY it wasn't right for whatever that occasion was, but I was sure happy to see it now! I added a little extra Archival Ink shading to my diecut flowers and leaves, a mat of glitter paper, ET VOILA... a 6" square card finished in no time!

Whatever else you make this week, I hope you'll love us and LEAF us at Shopping Our Stash!

Wendy Vecchi Autumn Greetings Frame by Lauren Bergold

How do you take this collection of fabulous Wendy Vecchi Products from Ranger, including the beautiful Autumn Greetings Stamp, Die and Stencil Set as well as Lots of Leaves Chippies...

...and make it into a lovely fall frame? The answer --in step-by-step form-- is on the Ranger Blog today. I'd love for you to jump over there and see!

Mandala Monday #38

It's a uniquely colorful Mandala Monday, as I allowed my palette to be based on the random bundle of Distress Markers I scored at the Paper Anthology Papercrafters' Garage Sale on Saturday!

Merry Sketch-mas

We've got a fabulous sketch challenge this fortnight at Jingle Belles, thanks to the very talented Stephanie; so we'll be making cards based on this helpful roadmap:

And here's how I used the sketch this week:

Lawn Fawn's Critters in the Arctic has been around for ages, and every time I see it, I'm a bit sad that I didn't purchase it when it was available. Much to my surprise, when I mentioned that to my friend Elisabeth at Paper Anthology a month or so ago, she said, "Oh I think I can still order that!" and sure enough... it arrived this week! I decided to paper piece the critters and add them to the diamond shape in the sketch, on which I fashioned (very abstract) layers of sky, snow and water. In my washi stash, I found the perfect grey tape to act as a sentiment. I matted out the design with some silvery Lawn Fawn snowflakes and a bit of stylized graph paper. To give the critters enough room, my diamond got a bit bigger than I planned, so I slightly truncated the sketch, in order to make it fit a 6" square card.

I hope you'll visit Jingle Belles to see what Stephanie has made and then start planning your own festive Sketch Card!

No Lines Coloring is NOT (Quite) as Hard as I Thought!

Yesterday I was lucky enough to spend time with my friend and fellow Jersey Girl Lorraine Mastalski of Paper Vernissage, who was kind enough to demonstrate the rudiments of No Lines Coloring. I'm pretty sure I'll never be on her level at this (or any other coloring skill, lol!) BUT... I now feel, with practice, this could be another technique I'll use periodically. It turns out one of the "tricks" of the trade is to use Ink on Three's Fadeout Ink which is completely brilliant, imo! It also turns out that choosing a stamp with enough detail and shading is also a very good idea, and luckily, the large flower spray in Wendy Vecchi's A Million Thanks Stamp, Die and Stencil Set from Ranger is an excellent choice!

Lorraine showed me some tricks and tips which really helped. She uses watercolor pencils in a very cool way, pulling the color right off the pencil with a waterbrush! I'd like to try that next time, for sure. This time I embraced my coloring comfort zone, and did a base coat of the lightest shades with my Tombow Dual Brush Pens; then came in and slowly (SLOWLY!!!) added layers of detail with my Prismacolor Pencils. Since my first attempt came out considerably better than I had imagined, I decided to diecut the flowers, stamp more foliage and a sentiment in from the Million Thanks set, and make it into a card. I even (rarely for me!) added some detail to the envelope! 

THANK YOU Lorraine for teaching me this technique... and also... for the amazing Lemon Blueberry Loaf! ♥