Week 9: Index Card a Day Concludes

Incredibly enough, we've (already?!) reached the end of ICAD; it seems like June and July fly by faster each and every year! Here are my cards from the past week:

Day 54: Mandala Monday

This rosy, leafy, semi-collaged mandala finds itself in Manhattan's Chinatown, at the corner of Mott and Pell Streets, which poses the deep philosophical question: Should we walk across Pell to Doyers and eat at Nom Wah Tea Parlor; or head down Mott to Chatham Square and go to Golden Unicorn? Decisions, decisions...

Day 55: Lemon or Lime

Lime, please!!!

(Handcut lime-slices made up of scraps of various green patterned papers)

Day 56: Winter

Snow and Ice (and doodle!) covered hills doodled with Tombows, outlined with a Letter It Fineliner and with sparkly bits of gel pen that utterly fail to show up in the photo!

Day 57: Bird

Inspired by all the amazing bird doodles in the Wendy Vecchi Facebook Group, I decided to make my own paper-pieced version. I may have gotten a little bit carried away...

Day 58: Illustration

This seemed like a good time to slide in one last #OneStapleCollage in this case all of the pieces in the stapled stack are vintage illustrations. From top to bottom: A 1965 Corvair; an example of hand-lettering for advertising; a gorgeous yellow rose from a gardening book; S & H Greenstamps (technically not an illustration, lol); a machinery diagram; and a black and white forest from a children's book. Attached with one staple to a funky olive green index card.

Day 59: Peaceful

There are few things that make me feel as #PEACEFUL as doodling randomly on an index card whilst watching British Mysteries on Acorn TV. Specifically, in this case, rainbow striped doodles during Brokenwood Mysteries, series nine.

Day 60: Filigree (Sorta)

I started out with the intention of doodling a #FILIGREE design for Day 60 of ICAD2023 but it morphed into more of a geometric repeating pattern in rainbow shades, so I just rolled with it... 

Day 61: Mosaic (Again... Pretty Loose)

One of my favorite things about ICAD is that you can use the prompts to get you started, but when your original idea morphs into something else entirely, it's still cool. It might, in fact, be even better than your original idea; but the main point is... you feel inspired and then can let yourself follow that inspiration WHEREVER it takes you. Maybe you'll also end up with a beautiful finished piece; even if you don't love the outcome, the process has likely given you a new idea of something to try in future. Whatever happens, you've gained something valuable. My other favorite thing is all the awesome artists I've met and interacted with over the simple act of creating art on index cards for 61 days in a row. Many thanks to everyone who has stopped by to say hi, and as always the biggest portion of my gratitude goes to Tammy Garcia, aka @gypsy999 who dreamt up this fun and inspiring shindig thirteen years ago and is still the biggest motivator and cheerleader I know. I'm already looking forward to June 1, 2024! 

♥♥♥♥♥

JB2315: Neutral Noel

This fortnight at Jingle Belles, we're asking you to create holiday cards which embrace a neutral color palette: white, cream, ivory, silver, gold, ecru, black, gray, charcoal, obsidian, brown, tan, kraft, camel, oatmeal, sienna (you get the picture). If you're feeling limited by lack of color, why not think texture? There's burlap, jute, paper bags, cork, chalkboards, sandpaper or lace... Use them all together or chose one hue and rock the monochromatic design  as long as it's NEUTRAL it's in.

Here's what I made for our Neutral Noel:

I raided my well-hoarded stash of Ciao Bella's Snow and the City papers (from Paper Anthology a couple of winters ago) from which I took the bokeh paper, the brick paper and tag; I was even able to make my focal point by punching a circle from the thumbnails on the collection's cover sheet. I mixed in a fabric poinsettia, Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Bling, some Pavilio White Lace Tape, a Tim Holtz sticker sentiment and lots (seriously LOTS!) of distressing and machine stitching.

Why not head over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's beautiful Neutral Noel card and start planning one of your own?

Girls (Tape) Just Wanna Have Fun

Eyelet Outlet Girls Tape is beautiful and fun... it also pairs really well with LOTS of other tapes and brads, so you can create a custom card for your favorite girl! In this case an axis of Film Strip Tape (placed vertically) and Music Washi creates a space to place three of the girls around, with Book Brads, Iced Coffee, the smartphone from our Selfie Set, a Feline Brad and Eye Glass Brads placed at the intersection. A few white Star Brads are scattered around and then some tiny silver Star Sequins. A mat of Glitter Black Tape adds an appropriately sparkly finishing touch.

Eyelet Outlet has embellishments for every girl, boy, woman and man on your cardmaking list, hop over to the Online Store and check it out!

"SMOOSHED" Archival Ink Coloring

This summer I've been using my favorite Wendy Vecchi Archival Ink shades a lot to make randomly "smooshed" backgrounds, then add flowers and other doodles on top. I also like starting with a stamped or doodled image and painting them with Archival Inks using a waterbrush full of Isopropyl Alcohol. But today I experimented with a new way of coloring with Archivals, that sort of splits the difference between the two.

I started with this pretty hydrangea image, stamped and embossed in black. I chose the main color for the hydrangea, smooshed that shade onto the craft sheet attached to my Stay-tion, spritzed it with rubbing alcohol in a Ranger Mister, and dipped the hydrangea area of the tag into the wet ink, moving it about a bit to soak up as much ink as possible. It's difficult to target ONLY the flowers, but that's ok, it adds interest to the tag to have little hits of color elsewhere. Then I smooshed a secondary color onto the mat and picked it up with the background area of the tag, taking care to choose something blend-friendly; for example on the tag with Cornflower hydrangeas I used Prickly Pear; for the Rosey Posey flowers I have a Tea Rose background; the Orange Blossom flowers are surrounded by Peachy Keen, etc. Then I used a waterbrush full of Isopropyl to paint the leaves in a coordinating shade of green, touching up the stems or any areas that had absorbed a lot of ink with a green colored pencil if needed. Finally I added tiny dots of Wendy's signature shades of Liquid Pearls, stamped a sentiment and tied a bow at the top. 

I really like they way this method splits the difference between Archival painting and randomly smooshed backgrounds, so you'll definitely be seeing it again!

Week 8: ICAD Round-Up

We're getting to the end of the Index Card a Day challenge soooooo much quicker than I could have imagined, but here are my cards from this week:

Day 47: Mandala Monday

Today's mandala was 100% inspired by this beautiful bloom, which I cut out of an older piece of Vicki Boutin patterned paper.* Then I drew the outer layers of the mandala in a similar style, on a vintage library catalog card for a book about Gaugin. The flower is probably just a teeny bit too orange to strictly qualify for ICAD2023's Day 47 prompt of Vermillion, but let's just roll with it, k? 

(*The paper is called "Picked for You" and is from American Crafts' "All the Good Things" line.)

Day 48: Raindrops

An absolutely literal interpretation of today’s prompt!

Day 49: Focus

I actually had an index card nearly finished that was just concentric circles of patterned paper; and then I saw the off-cuts... circle slivers of various size, looking like funky broken piecharts and I immediately peeled everything off and changed direction!!! 

(& that is what ICAD is all about, imo!)

Day 50: Off-Prompt

Today's prompt was "Note to Self" and since mine was to clear my worktable off enough that the precarious piles were not threatened every time I got up to get something, I made a Clean-Up Collage from some of the many and various discarded bits thereon.

Day 51: Off-Prompt

Commemorating, in ICAD form, the amazing layered rainbow fruit salad we had last night. I did not include the yummy vanilla yogurt sauce, but feel free to imagine it!

Day 52: Weathervane

This eclectic collage has stickers, ancient rub-ons (that surprisingly still worked perfectly?!) part of a sewing pattern, wide washi tape and an American Eagle handsome enough to be (one suspects) a bit of a Weather VAIN...

Day 53: Museum

I *LOVE* museums! Big or small ones; wide-ranging or super-specific; traditional or modern; art museums, historical societies, botanic gardens... I'm there. My friend Barbara and I have built entire vacations around attending a specific exhibition in a far-flung city; @smilynstef and I devote a significant portion of every NYC trip to seeing what's on in our favorite museums. None of this has ANYTHING to do with my card, which features flower stickers on vintage paper, set off with washi tape frames; though the super-dense arrangement does bring to mind the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia.

♥♥♥

Santa's Hat: Week 2

Over at Jingle Belles, we're still teamed up with the fine folks on the Double Trouble Challenge Blog, celebrating Crafty Christmas in July and making holiday cards that feature Santa's Hat. Here's what I made this week:

When it comes to critters who can wear an Eyelet Outlet Santa Hat Brad (or an Elf Hat!) most adorably, it's gotta be hard to beat Pretty Pink Posh's Holiday Pals, right? Plus, it was an excellent excuse to do a bit of coloring and use a very cool sketch I saw online!

Head over to Jingle Belles for links to the Double Trouble Blog, a peek at Stephanie's cool card AND a glimpse at the little prize we have this fortnight!

Wendy Vecchi Liquid Pearls Shaker Card

I've always loved shaker cards, and I love them even more, now that I know I can make my own perfectly coordinated shaker confetti using Ranger's Liquid Pearls in my favorite palette of Wendy Vecchi signature shades. Head over to the Ranger Blog and follow along as I use Wendy Vecchi's Doodle Town Stamps, Archival Inks and coordinating shades of Liquid Pearls to make this sunny, summer-inspired Thank You card.

Don't Worry...

...BEE Happy! And nothing makes a cardmaker happier than a bright and BEE-autiful card featuring Eyelet Outlet Bumble Bee Brads, Mini Bees, Colored Daisies, Mini Leaves and Music Note Washi Tape. There's even a supercute Beehive Quicklet Eyelet from our fabulous Clearance Section to set the scene!

BEE sure to check out our Tradeshow Schedule to see when the Eyelet Outlet Booth will BEE coming to your town this summer!

SOS501: No Stamping Allowed!

It's ALMOST Anything Goes at Shopping Our Stash this fortnight: you can make a card of any size and shape, for any occasion, using any colors you'd like; BUT... (you knew there was gonna be a but here, right?!) ...you cannot include any stamping! 

I was considering a few different ideas when I stumbled upon most of a sheet of Altenew Journal Cards from (it says on the part of the tearstrip which still remains) 2016, and it all sort of clicked into place. I've used three of the cards: the bike one is still exactly as it appeared on the sheet; those fussycut butterflies came from the texty card the bike is matted on; and that beautiful cluster of flowers came from a third. I also brought in some cool (ancient!) Jenni Bowlin button stickers; part of a very old patterned paper with alphabetical tabs on; and a tiny scrap of Basic Grey from the Out of Print line. I did lots of edge-distressing, a bit of machine stitching and called it a day.

Be sure to visit SOS to see the other inspiring creations our amazing crew have come up with, then start thinking of what you'll link up for our "No Stamping Allowed" challenge!

ICAD, Week 7

The NJ weather is pretty warm, but the Index Card inspiration on Instagram (aka #dyicad2023 hashtag) is red hot! Here are my cards from the past week:

Day 40: Mandala Monday

It's an Ink-Over-Collage Mandala Monday, featuring some of my favorite, extra-vivid Simon Hurley create inks, including Clear Skies, Later Gator, Shooting Star, Remember Me, Prom Dress and Roar!

Day 41: Off-Prompt

A surprising proportion of my collages are composed based on color; in this case cerulean blue and sunshine yellow. On a vintage library catalog card.

Day 42: Off-Prompt

Freeform funky flower doodles on a smooshed background of  Wendy Vecchi Archival Inks.

Day 43: Patina

Quite a loose take on today’s prompt of #PATINA because usually rust isn’t blue… 

(Ok yes, busted: this is basically just an excuse to sequentially smoosh some of my favorite Wendy Vecchi Archival Inks, including Night Sky, Prickly Pear, Sky Blue, Leaf Green and Morning Glory; and doodle with Ranger's Letter It Metallic Markers.)

Day 44: Wabi Sabi

Several years ago, during ICAD, was the first time I had ever heard of Wabi Sabi (the Japanese ethos of embracing the inevitable decay and perfect imperfection of the physical world) and the first image that I consciously recognized as being Wabi Sabi happened to be a crumbling brick wall with some vines growing randomly out of the mortar. Since then, I think I've made a Wabi Sabi Brick Wall card every year; and here's the 2023 version: handcut patterned paper bricks, pink index card mortar and stapled on wonky leaves. Not gonna lie... I really love this one! 

Day 45: Repeat

Pretty sure the "REPEAT" prompt was not intended as an invitation to repeat my favorite technique of a random collage featuring a historical lady, a sewing pattern layout, S & H Greenstamps, sheetmusic and found text (topped off with a few sticker butterflies) but... that's how I chose to interpret it!

Day 46: Millefleur

Millefleur is French for a thousand flowers, and has its origins in Medieval tapestries, where the foreground would have figures, animals or structures and the background would be filled in with lots of tiny plants and flowers, usually surrounded by green. Nowadays a millefleur pattern can be taken more loosely to be any allover pattern with smallish plants and/or flowers. In Italian, Millefiori also means a thousand flowers and generally refers to millefiori glasswork which comprises a bunch of glass canes all fused together and then sliced to resemble a sort of mosaic, vaguely floral, pattern. My card has very loose fleurs painted in some of my favorite Wendy Vecchi Archival Inks (Orange Blossom, Cornflower, Violet, Night Sky and Carnation) then outlined and detailed with Letter It Fineliners.

Hats Off to Santa!

The newest Jingle Belles prompt is to create a card that features a Santa Hat... it might be on Santa himself, or you might want to dress-up another person or creature in a Santa Hat. Possibly you'll even want to make a card that's shaped like Santa's Hat? There are quite a few possibilities. Whatever you choose, after you link with us, remember to head over to the Double Trouble Challenge Blog and link up there, as well, where Christmas in July continues through the end of the month! Meanwhile, here's my card: 

I started with a cute fussy-cut image of Santa wearing his hat... and then I built out into a sort of collagey card with lots of smaller circles, squares and wordfetti, in an attempt to polish off a few ancient sticker sheets and scraps of paper. It's either an eclectic combination of intriguing elements OR a bit of a mish-mash, depending on how you look at it, but it was a lot of fun to make!

As our Jingle Belles Christmas in July celebration continues, again we have a sweet little prize for one randomly selected cardmaker AND you'll have the benefit of being able to also link your card over at Double Trouble, too!

Merci Bouquet!

Fast, easy Thank You cards are simple when you pair Eyelet Outlet flower brads and washi tapes! Extra wide Sunflower Tape makes for beautiful diecuts and what could be better than Sunflower and Leaf Brads to adorn them? Or, try Coloring Book Washi with Stitched Flower Brads and a sweet Mini Bee to finish the design. 

 The possible Eyelet Outlet Brad and Tape combinations are only limited by your imagination!

Paper Anthology's Christmas in July: Take Ten (Class or Kit!)

How cool would it be to saunter into August with TEN beautiful, unique cards in your Christmas Card stash? If you answered, "Pretty darn cool!" then this one-day, extra-special, quick and easy card class at Paper Anthology,in Kenvil, NJ, Christmas in July: Take Ten is definitely for you! Join me from 12-3pm on Saturday, July 29th for this Xmas Xtravaganza: we’ll start with a sheet of ten journal cards from Photoplay’s It's a Wonderful Christmas collection, add pre-cut patterned paper mats, washi tape, brads, diecuts, ribbon and sparkly things… et voila… you'll go home with an instant collection of eight A2 holiday cards and two slightly larger cards (for the latter, A6 envelopes will be provided).

There are just eight seats available for the class, but... the same supplies will also be available as July's Holiday Jumpstart Card Kit, which can be pre-ordered now (and are equally enjoyable in other locations besides New Jersey. The cost is $35. Claim your spot in the July 29th in-store class OR reserve a Holiday Jumpstart: Christmas in July Card Kit by emailing elisabeth@paperanthology.com today!

Week Six: Index Card a Day

Summer always seems to fly by at record speed, especially in June and July when we ICAD-ians are knee-deep in index cards and inspiration! Here's what I made this week:

Day 33: Mandala Monday

This weekend, Tammy G reminded me how much I love One Staple Collages, so I decided to celebrate Mandala Monday with a One Staple Mandala! My mandala layers are constructed of a library catalog card painted by my friend Mary and gelprints made by Gina and Linda (which they used to wrap some pretty fab birthday presents) enhanced with the newest set of Dina Wakley Collage Papers, Jumbled Letters, from Ranger and the dragonfly is from the biggest and coolest sticker book that Stephanie gave me. 

(Of which more later...) 

Day 34: Summer

Fresh strawberries are one of my very favorite summertime treats; I don't think I could even count how many of them I ate during the month of June. So when I found this cool pattern for adding an appliqued berry to knitwear, I couldn't resist a strawberrycentric collage.

Day 35: Astronomy

Inspired by today's prompt, I was randomly blending some of my new Simon Hurley create. Inks from Ranger, going for a sort of Aurora Borealis effect... and then... it turned into an abstract doodle. 'Cause that's the way I roll! 

Day 36: Imaginary

I'm taking an #IMAGINARY trip to Oahu, thanks to this fun hibiscus doodle, painted with some of my favorite Wendy Vecchi Archival Inks... Peachy Keen and Rosey Posey; with a little Viridian added in on the foliage. Did you know that the official State Flower of Hawaii is specifically the yellow hibiscus? So these are just "backup blossoms" then, but they were fun to paint and doodle! 

Day 37: Off-Prompt

Would you believe I had already made this torn paper collage background BEFORE Stephanie gave me the Botanists Sticker Anthology, the amazing book I referred to on Mandala Monday, which has hundreds and hundreds of gorgeous realistic plant and flower stickers.  

Day 38: Zodiac

My western Zodiac sign is Cancer and it's not that I have anything against crabs, but I confess I prefer my Chinese Zodiac sign, the dragon! This one came from the amazing Pearl River Emporium in NYC's Chinatown, he... (or she? it's hard to tell with dragons!) ...is perched atop a repro library card, adorned with a page from a Chinese zodiac calendar, and a little postage on the side.

Day 39: Levels

Funky (dotty!) flower doodles, made with my Zig Clean Color Dot Markers, from that late great bastion of NYC crafting... The Ink Pad! I like that the gridded card makes them sort of look like the coolest bar graph EVER!

Stars and Stripes: Week 2

At Jingle Belles we're still making holiday cards that feature stars, or stripes, or both; and we're still teamed up with the Double Trouble Challenge so you've got a chance at two different prizes, on two different blogs, with just ONE card!

I've gone a bit wild this time: my card features diecut stars that are striped; some tapes that are starry and some that are striped; ancient star brads and star stickers; even my sentiment strip is striped! Plus there are some adorable Lawn Fawn bunnies and birds, which aren't really based on the theme but they're super cute.

Be sure to check out Stephanie's card at Jingle Belles and then head over to Double Trouble for another helping of inspiration!

Dina Wakley + Perfect Pearls = Journal Joy

Ranger's Perfect Pearls add a beautifully soft shimmery effect to any project. My art journal is my favorite place to experiment with new (to me) products and techniques. Since there are so many ways to use Perfect Pearls, and they look different on every shade of paper, I think I could fill an entire volume! I haven't quiiiiite done that yet, but today on the Ranger Project Page you can follow along as I use them three different ways with Dina Wakley's beautiful "Everyone is Welcome" stamp set, in my Dina Blue Edition Journal.

I'd love for you to head on over and check it out!

Life is Better at the Beach

Life IS better at the beach, but the next best thing is a beautiful beachy card, bedecked with Eyelet Outlet Brads. Shell Brads, Shell Corners, Sea Shore, flying and standing Seagulls and Tall Palm Brads add coastal flavor to faux polaroids matted with Sparkle Gold Glitter Tape add glamor. A Wide Wood Washi background with a twine border is set off with colorful, old-school 1/8" Round Eyelets and a scattering of Multi-sized Pearls completes the design.

This summer the Eyelet Outlet Booth is probably visiting a town near you, check out our Tradeshow Schedule to find out where and when!

Did You Say, "SOS500"?!

Yes! Yes, we did! It's time for our 500th challenge at Shopping Our Stash and we hope you'll come along and help us "Celebrate by the Numbers!" To mark an occasion featuring such a big number, we'd like to see projects with at least one numeral. Here's what I made:

Ok, yes, my card really does have only a single numeral, but what I really needed right now was a girly birthday card, so that's what I made. There is *SIGNIFICANT* use of older stash here; I don't think there's a single item that's less than 5 or 6 years old. I used up that sheet of cute chipboard critters; the oversized alphas were from the big box store yeaaaaarrrrs ago; the texty patterned paper was (I think) 7 Gypsies. This measures just over 6x6 and I confess it has exactly the vibe I was going for, which is always such a great feeling, isn't it?

Coincidentally, Seize the Birthday also has a (birthday-centric!) numerical theme this time, as well, though their challenge ends later this morning, so you'll need to be a bit quick. Still, they post a NEW theme every other Thursday and you can always choose their option of "Anything BIRTHDAY Goes" so you'll definitely want to check them out!

Meanwhile, head over to Shopping Our Stash to see what the crew have made to inspire you, then start thinking what you'll make to help us celebrate! ♥

ICAD: Week 5

We hit the halfway point of the Index Card a Day project this week, we're rounding the corner and heading into July, woohoo. If you're still chugging along, well done, keep going! If you've fallen behind, no big deal... just re-start! No catching up, no judgement, no nothing; re-start and do as much as you can, when you can. I know we talk a lot about 61 cards and "daily art practice" but the important part (imo!) is the commitment, not the numbers. If you were having fun and found it valuable, just come back! 

Day 26: Mandala Monday

I've "stretched" this mandala a bit, horizontally... to fit the 3x5 shape; but it's more or less symmetrical, thanks to my gridded index card, from the big box office supply store, last year!

Day 27: Indigo

Is it just me, or does my free-range organic leafy doodle look a bit like an #INDIGO version of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors??! Feeeeeeeeeed me, Seymour!

Day 28: Asanoha Pattern

Every summer there a couple of ICAD prompts that I have to Google, and this is one of those! I hadn't heard of an asanoha pattern and it turned out to be harder to draw than I had expected. It took me two tries: the denser one is more accurate but somehow harder to see; the looser one is not technically the exact repeat (the spaces between are uneven) but it's quite pretty. Both were made using my Zig Clean Color Dot Markers, from that late great bastion of NYC crafting... The Ink Pad! ♥

Day 29: Evergreen

Sometimes I have a pretty firm plan for ICAD, and sometimes I just wing it. 

(Can you guess which this is?)

Day 30: Carnival

I started with a very abstract idea of a carnival... bright lights, bunting, lots of color ...and had a lot of fun painting curvy shapes with half a dozen shades of Wendy Vecchi's Archival Inks and a waterbrush full of rubbing alcohol. Alternatively, this represents what my plumage would look like if I were a bird! :)

Day 31: Charcoal

A very literal take on charcoal: it's briquettes! If charcoal briquettes were multilayered and machine stitched and ummmmm... plaid? K, maybe not that literal...

Day 32: Off-Prompt

This vintage book of different types of knitting stitches is in Japanese and is printed in monotones, but instead of black and white the sections are blue, green, brown and purple. (The purple is my favorite.) That scrap of sheet music already had stars stamped on (in Antique Linen Distress Ink, I think?) Instructions for the Pekinese stitch came from a very tattered vintage embroidery pamphlet. I composed this by making the lines in the various papers intersect in interesting ways; but then it needed one more element. The butterflies were the right shape, size and color. And that's probably as close as I can get to explaining my process for making a collage!

♥♥♥