SOS288: days of yore

we are rockin' the vintage vibe at shopping our stash this week, and you know i never, ever, object to that in the least! so here's what i made:

vintage bits: roses cut from an old postcard, top value trading stamps from stephanie, norwegian sheet music from miss linda, vintage book paper, heart doily and lace from my stash; new patterned paper: recollections; tan cardstock: core'dinations; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, gluedots, sewing machine

last fall i stumbled a secondhand shop with a bunch of postage stamps and postcards being sold really inexpensively because they were in fairly bad condition. i'm always kind of excited to find vintage bits in bad shape because it means that, say, cutting the beautiful embossed roses out of their background to use on a card is no longer vandalism, it's a rescue mission, lol. apart from the roses, my other favorite thing on this card is the panel of top value trading stamps, which were part of my xmas gift from stephanie, along with a book of big dollar trading stamps. which are both so cool, i've decided they need their own feature photo:

these are two varieties of trading stamps i had never heard of and both books not only have loads of stamps, they've also got that perfectly imperfect patina which comes from being cheaply made at a time when the phrase "acid free" meant you didn't really like the grateful dead that much. oh and the big bonus is that either the glue on these was not top quality or the owner just didn't stick them down very well, because i was able to gently peel and save almost all the stamps from the other side of the page... to use on another project! (can i get a "wahey"?!)

something else which is always cause for celebration is the amazing and inspiring work of my SOS dt darlings, so be sure to treat yourself to an eyeful of their creations at shopping our stash! ♥

Wait... *MORE* Than Yarn??!

I suppose by now everyone knows how much I love paper, brads and washi tape, but something you may not realize is that I also love yarn... quite a bit, actually. So I was pretty excited when I discovered Eyelet Outlet Knitting Brads which are featured in this card I'm sharing on the EO Blog today:

Each packet has a mix of knitting needles and balls of yarn in three luscious colors. The aqua ones are a perfect match for the Blue Dot Washi Tape I've used to frame up the card. It's possible this little kitty loves them as much as I do. Which explains the Heart Brads scattered among the swirly embroidery floss I've used to play the part of unravelling yarn, lol. 

I hope today you'll find a little time to do something creative with the things that *YOU* love: whether that's yarn, or paint, or super-fun Eyelet Outlet embellishments!

round up the usual suspects...

...here comes another week's worth of sketchbook fun! :)

i wish i had taken a photo of this gelli print before i started working on it, but i didn't so i'll just have to tell you, lol. when stephanie and i were in the midst of a printing frenzy last june, i had placed my hand-cut buddha stencil on top of the plate, so there was white space on the actual print; as it turned out, instead of gluing things on top of it, i cut out the void and layered the gelli on foam tape OVER the collage of sheet music, chinese text, doilies, etc... i really like this look, so i'm sure you'll be seeing it again...

"bicycle"

for #patternjanuary; clearly a pretty loose take on the spokes and wheels of a bike. with loads of bright color burst shades and tons of doodle-y pen detail.

technically, not in my sketchbook... have i mentioned lately how much i loooooooooooove wrapping presents?! (i love wrapping presents!!!)

"folk art"

pattern january, again. i went with mexican folk art, and a much more regular/repeating pattern than usual...b/c you've gotta try EVERYTHING, right?!

pattern january two-fer: "rain" plus "black and white"

a much more sensible way to do a repeating pattern is to cheat, lol. i added some strips of black paper to my sketchbook, punched a bunch of clouds from black and from white and THEN... did pen doodles on top of both. (b/c srsly, if i had to draw all the clouds and paint in a background, this thing would still not be finished!)

"turquoise"

i always love the look of sprinkling color burst powder directly onto wet paper and just letting it do what it does. this is the first time i've ever tried it on top of metallic paint pen doodles. it won't be the last, though...

we are headed to the chiropractor this morning, which means crocheting on the way (for me, anyhow) and saladworks on the way home. i hope you will get your fair share of pleasant pastimes and healthy treats today, too! ♥♥♥

stick with us...

...at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ where we continue to be stuck on stickers! here's my card:

claus stickers: doodlebug design; sentiment sticker: simple stories; patterned paper: pebbles, we r memory keepers, making memories, flair: recollections; bingo card (digi) jenni bowlin studio via snap click supply; text journal card digi: lori whitlock via designer digitals; white kromekote cardstock: the paper cut; ink: colorbox; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape

i've said it before and no doubt i'll say it again: i love doodlebug design, especially for christmas cards. yes, their designs are UBER-cute and a little goes a long way, but they found their own niche early on and have consistently turned out high quality, use-able productus. and seriously: just LOOK at that adorable santa and missus claus! i combined them with papers from a bunch of different companies and a print-at-home jenni bowlin bingo card, using the awesome current sketch from sketch saturday. (whom i thank, btw, for the shout-out on my SOS fairies card last week!)

meanwhile stephanie has another awesome sticker card to show you, as well. why not hop over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and check that out right now?!

all that glitters...

...is (wait forrrrrrr ittttttttttttttt) *GOLD* of course! which is what we want to see at shopping our stash this week. if you're anything like my own magpie self, that will be an occasion for great joy and rapture... right up until the very second you have to photograph your card. and then not so much, lol.

patterned paper: my mind's eye, glitz, basic grey; white kromecote cardstock: the paper cut; burlap dogwood flowers: prima; brads: october afternoon; doily from my stash; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, gluedots

so yeah. once again i've got a picture that not only completely fails to convey a primary element of my card, it's actually the element on which the challenge is based. excellent. most of my papers are from the couple-of-years-ago "my story" collection by my mind's eye, though; so basically, everything that looks tannish-kraft color in the photo (the sentiment, all the arrows, a few touches on the butterflies, etc) is metallic gold, honest. here's a sideways shot, that kinda sorta illustrates that point:

i've used both halves of the current fusion card challenge, which is always fun, obviously:

for more inspiration (and really lovely photos!) check out those golden girls known as the SOS design team right now, darlings!

Je T'aime, Valentine

Bonjour, mes amies! I'm on the Eyelet Outlet blog today, with a Valentine gift idea that could work at any time of year, really. I started with an inexpensive papier mache box and a heart punch, added lots of fun Eyelet Outlet embellishments-- including my beloved Eiffel Tower Brads-- and here's what I came up with:

I do love banners! They are easy and fun to make, and can be adapted to literally any occasion. For this one I punched medium sized hearts and tiny circles from a gorgeous paper by Blue Fern Studios that's technically got nothing Valentine-themed or Parisian about it, but still struck me as being perfect for both anyway, lol! Then I got right to the FUN PART: embellishing! In addition to Eiffel Tower Brads, I've got some Star Brads, Swirl Bling, Paper Flowers and Heart-Shaped Pearls.

My favorite Paris Love Washi solved the biggest problem I've had in the past when decorating little boxes: how to neatly cover the edge of the lid? Washi is not only the perfect size for this job, it's also self-adhesive! I added a band of Skinny Hearts Washi to the bottom of the box, as well. I could have done the entire bottom of the box that way, but I had a cool index page from an old Michelin Guide to Paris that I was dying to use.

I wanted the top of the box to coordinate with the banner, so I used the same elements, again--Eiffel Tower Brads, Swirl Bling and Paper Flowers --but made them a little more prominent, to suit the size and shape of the lid. Inking the edges of everything gives a sort of vintage vibe and ties all the elements together.

One of the things I like best about this idea is its flexibility. Whether your Valentine loves Italy, Dinosaurs, Sports or Gardening, Eyelet Outlet has a brad for that!

I hope you'll be inspired to make something extra special for your Valentine this year! ♥♥♥

palm fronds and donuts...

...are two of the great pleasures of life AND, coincidentally, the subjects of quick color burst watercolors in my sketchbook this week. both were prompts from anika starmer's #patternjanuary event on instagram. if you're wondering why i always seem to be participating in some sort of challenge or prompt list when it comes to my sketchbook, the answer is that by the time my "free drawing" opportunity arrives (usually about 10pm) i will still have the energy to create something, but not enough to think up what! the latter, for some reason, is usually harder for me. i'm not sure why, but there ya go! :)

combination of the prompts "palm" and "bright"

i think you'll agree it does both of those pretty straightforwardly

"baked goods"

i think technically, donuts are fried? they are also surprisingly fun to paint!

(to achieve the PERFECT color for dark chocolate icing, mix a teeeeeeny bit of alizarin crimson into your burnt umber!!!)

"cut and paste"

collaged bits of gelli print for this one

"fan"

also gelli-based. i've been having a real craving to get my gelli plate out and do some printing!

 

"greenery"

more colorburst. every shade of green, as a matter of fact.

"number"

or in this case, numerals. all of them. done with tombow dualbrush pens. 

(unless, of course, you count ZERO... which one of my wise guy IG friends pointed out was also a number. i didn't quite have time this week to travel all the way to norway and smack him, but i thought about it, lol!) 

"tile"

mine look a bit more like bricks, though i think that's mostly my choice of alizarin crimson, cadmium scarlet and fuchsia colorburst

one final thing i made last week was a pair of swatch books-- one for myself and one to hang next to the color burst display at paper anthology. they have each color painted as well-mixed watercolor on one side, and using the "spritz and sprinkle" method on the other. i highly recommend swatching of paint and pen colors --even if it's just on one of the back pages of a sketchbook-- not only is it ♥FUN♥ to use every single color, it makes it easy to choose exactly the right shade for any project!

************

i do hope this weekend finds you well and planning something fun and creative... after all your chores are done, of course!

let's stick together

this fortnight at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ we're celebrating arguably the most old-school of supplies, that's right, we mean stickers! materials, styles and manufacturers may come and go, but stickers will always have a place in every papercrafter's stash. so we'd like you to use at least one-- and maybe many more-- on your holiday card. here's what i made:

bauble stickers: hambly screen prints (oh how i miss you, hambly!); border stickers: echo park, basic grey, photo play; patterned paper: crate paper, simple stories, making memories; doily die: cherry lynn designs; vintage shipping tag: from my stash; kraft colored cardstock: bazzill; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, sewing machine

yep, i went with "many more" lol. i've got three beautiful (ancient!) hambly baubles and four-- count 'em four-- different, layered, border stickers. not to mention a genuine vintage shipping tag, a faux vintage postcard and a diecut doily. that's quite a few ingredients, so luckily i had the latest atlantic hearts sketch to tell me exactly where to place them!

meanwhile, stephanie has also made a gorgeous sticker-centric card to inspire you, why not hop over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and check that out right now, darlings? ♥

SOS286: fantastic beasts & other MYTH-ellaneous creatures

this week at shopping our stash we're embracing all things fabulous and fantastic. ok, yeah, some might say we do that EVERY week, lol, but this time we're using the dictionary definitions of those words, so we're looking for creatures out of fable and fantasy, like unicorns, dragons, monsters, jackalopes and even fairies!

fairie tags: graphic 45 "once upon a springtime"; patterned paper: 7 gypsies, glitz design, blue fern studio + a lotus illustration from an old magazine and some text from a children's book; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, scotch gluestick

i've achieved a pretty fantastic level of stash usage this week, too, by virtue of my three fairies being clipped from a graphic 45 cardstock punchout sheet from "days of yore"! i've also got text paper from a vintage book of fairy tales, a lotus illustration from an ancient magazine, and some little scraps and offcuts of older patterned papers. the only new thing about this card, actually, is the brand new sketch from sketch saturday, which is really cool, don't you think? just look at those criss-crossy lines! i've flipped it, but otherwise i've been pretty faithful:

those teeeeeeeny tiny fairies were moderately fussy to cut out of their miniature tags, so let's give them a bit of a closeup, k?

and now i hope you'll head on over to SOS to see what magical creations my design team darlings have for you! ♥

The Valentiniest Valentine of All Time! :)

Hi guys, it's my day on the Eyelet Outlet blog where I'm celebrating the fact that it is EXACTLY one month until Valentine's Day, so if you haven't ordered yourself some heart-ful Eyelet Outlet goodies, or started sampling dark chocolate candies to see which ones will make the best gifts*, today's a great day to start! I've made a really traditional card, just to show you just a few of the many cool heart items from which you could choose in the Eyelet Outlet store:

For the record, there is NO patterned paper on this card, I've used three different tapes to make my heart squares: Heart Washi, Skinny Heart Washi and the Stripey Hearts which, alas, are out of print, but luckily there are LOTS MORE heart-ful varieties in stock! I've got some pretty Pink Paper Flowers attached with a Heart Brad and a tiny (1/16"!) Mini Round Brad. Black is admittedly not a traditional Valentine's Day color, lol, but it surely does make the red and white *POP* don't you think? In addition to the black ink of the sentiment and those uber-skinny black mats, the black enamels from the Vacation Heart Colorway really tie everything together.

Stay tuned to the Eyelet Outlet blog... I happen to know my fellow designers have more great ideas to help you prepare for Valentine's Day!

*I do hope my Valentine appreciates just how much candy I have selflessly sampled on his behalf! :) :) :)

P is for...

...presents, penguin, and "please plan to play" with us during the final week of "no time like the presents" at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥! how do you do that, you ask? just make a holiday card that has an image of a present OR which includes a bit of recycled giftwrap in the design. easy, peasy! here's my card:

penguin cut from adorable holiday giftwrap; patterned paper: echo park, doodlebug; glossy black cardstock: ranger: glittery cardstock present stickers: tpc studios; ink: colorbox; googly eyes: michaels; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, scotch gluestick, mini gluedots

yep, i've got both elements again! the presents-- which are some utterly ANCIENT cardstock stickers-- are pretty obvious, but can you see the giftwrap? let me give you a hint: it's the PENGUIN!!!!!!!!!!!

this little dude and a bunch of his brethern... (or possibly sisteren? it's hard to tell with penguins, lol; at least it's hard for us humans to tell, the penguins seem to do ok!) ...were on the paper that my gifts from miss gina were wrapped in, and seriously, before i had even really properly looked at the gifts i was already planning to glue the least wrinkly penguins to some plain white cardstock so i could fussy cut them. a decision i totally stand by, as a matter of fact! i've used the sketch half of the first fusion challenge of 2017 and i wish them a very happy third anniversary, as well!

check out miss stephanie's amazing card and then link up your own PRESENT-y masterpiece at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ darlings!

the best things in life are *SPARKLY*!!! (obviously)

and those are the kind we especially like at shopping our stash. but alas, not everything arrives at one's doorstep pre-glittered; some things need our help. so this week's challenge is to use stickles (or the like) on your project!

frosted lace stickles, tinted with a teeeeeeeny bit of ultramarine colorburst and yet still not really showing up in the pictures; continuing my mission to use up some of my (many, many!) tiny stickers i have a bear and bunny by funny sticker world, plus sunshine, a vw microbus and a cute sentiment from simple stories; tiny library cards: amy tangerine/american crafts; patterned paper: making memories, sei, echo park; tape: martha stewart + freckled fawn; twine: celebrate it... which my aunt joy saw in a store just before xmas and thought i would like, how cool is that? ♥; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape

my card inadvertently sets a record for the most stickles on one piece of paper that cannot be seen at all in photographs! yeah. apparently, these are stealth stickles. clearly, they have defense applications. i'm sure the pentagon is very interested! luckily i somehow actually remembered to take a "process pic" and by virtue of increasing the contrast on the photo you can very nearly almost see them. (and YES, i hand-painted the stickles on the left-hand side and lower edge of every single cloud!):

despite the absence of convincing photographic evidence, this card really is pretty sparkly in real life, honest! so of course you're all invited over to see it in person. i'll make you a mochacino* and everything! this goes for the folks from the simon says stamp monday challenge blog, too, though since this week is "be square" and my card seems thankfully to be doing that fairly straightforwardly, i think they'll be able to tell.

another great place to visit is SOS where my design team darlings are ROCKIN' IT... you know... like always... ♥♥♥

*technically, it'll just be a regular cup of coffee with a spoonful of ghirardelli cocoa mix stirred into it... but it's yummy and chocolatey, i promise! :)

let's use ALL the colors!

i've been having a blast playing along with anika starmer's "pattern january" event on instagram. some days i doodle with pens, or cut and paste, collage-style, but mostly it's been an awesome excuse to get out my color bursts every night and drown in ♥COLOR♥! what could be more luscious in the middle of a grey new jersey winter?

octagons

fuchsia, tangerine and gamboge color burst "smooshed" onto water color paper, then allowed to dry thoroughly, before adding the eponymous octagons with a fine tipped black pen

rainbow

technically, not part of the challenge, this was my first attempt at a smooshed color burst background for "octagons". it got a little out of control, lol, but i liked it so much, i made it my new banner photo on facebook

mermaid

couldn't decide between a pattern of scales or a pattern of bubbles, so i did a pattern of scales INSIDE a pattern of bubbles! :)

desert

this started out as a kind of stylized sun, sand and sky and became... ummmmm... floor tile??!?!

(indigo, yellow ochre and gamboge color burst do make a fab palette tho...)

 

snowman

or in this case... snow-MANDALA!

(ok, yeah, they can't all be winners, lol!)

citrus

i had a hard time deciding what fruits to draw AND how to arrange them. so i didn't decide, i just did a little bit of everything!

(and right there is what i LOVE about my sketchbook: it doesn't have to make sense, it doesn't have to be cohesive, it doesn't have to "work" as a finished piece. it DOES have to be fun to do and teach me something. mission accomplished!)

starts with "J"

jenga, jelly beans and jasmine...

keys

and let me just say: i love how this looks, but it was one of the most boring things i've ever drawn...

in case you'd like to play along, here is the prompt list; there's no need to catch up, work in order, or even post publicly; jump in anywhere and do as many as inspire you. be as literal or as tangential as you want. use stamps, stencils, stickers, pens, markers... whatever you like! or if you really want to HAVE FUN: get out your paints and just GO NUTS... you can thank me later! ♥