Dashing Through the Snow (Week 2)

It's week two of our snow-centric Jingle Belles challenge for which we've teamed up with our friends at The Double Trouble Challenge. Thus giving you a chance to participate in TWO challenges with ONE card! As the title implies, for "Dashing Through the Snow" the brief at Jingle Belles is merely to make a card that features SNOW, whether it be snowflakes, snowmen or a snowy landscape.

As you may know, the "Double" in "Double Trouble" refers to the fact that there are several parts to their challenges, though the only requirement is to play along with Thing 1, which in this case is to make a window or aperture card. But the Double Trouble Gang encourage you to add some fun... try their options by participating in Twisted Sister's Thing 3 and/or Double Dare's Thing 2 to earn additional chances in their random drawing. This time, those twists are as follows:

Here's what I made this week:

I had made a few extra white-embossed panels during our Jingle Belles' "EMBOSSING" challenge, and since they happened to be snowy, when I found them again, I decided they were perfect for making an aperture card. I used an ancient set of Nestabilities' Labels 20 to cut the largest size from a panel I had inked with Wendy Vecchi's Night Sky Archival; then the next size down to cut a smaller version of the same shape from a  Sky Blue Archival Panel; then I layered both of those over a third panel inked with Violet Archival. I embossed the "Noel" from Wendy's Statements Chippies, inked it with Night Sky, added it on top, embellished with a few diecut snowflakes, et voila. Since all of my supplies were still sitting there, including the beautiful label shapes cut from the apertures of card one, I decided to build a second card with the leftovers and another Chippie from the same set.

Head on over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's card and a picture of the prize and all the links to Double Trouble's half of this special Crossover Challenge!

Calling All Angels

 The lovely and cherubic new Eyelet Outlet Angel Brads have arrived just in time for Christmas in July festivities! This card features both shapes from the set, hovering near the sentiment, which is backed by two strips of gorgeously glimmering Glittery Tape in Copper. Below are a few golden diecut baubles, decorated with a Pearl Brad and a Snowflake Brad.

Shopping List:

Eyelet Outlet Angel Brads

Copper Glitter Tape

6mm White Pearl Brad 

Snowflake Brad

In addition to these beautiful Angel Brads, the brand new July Release also includes colorful Retro Trees, yummy Candy Corn and mischievous Black Cats. Check them all out in the EO Store.

Yet Another ICAD Round-up

Another week has passed and thus seven new index card artworks have transpired:

ICAD24-22: Mandala Monday 

I'm off-prompt in favor of Mandala Monday, for which I've drawn a bunch of nested/clustered mandalas on a neon orange index card.

ICAD24-21: Off-Prompt

Definitely not the best hibiscus I've ever drawn, but I quite like my stripey leaves and I'm awarding myself bonus points because the whole thing takes place on a library catalog card for a book called, "A Backyard Flower Garden for Kids"!

ICAD24-20: Off-Prompt

Freeform curves made out of layered neon index cards. With plenty of machine-stitching on top!

ICAD24-19: Off-Prompt

Best Fishes on Day 49 of ICAD2024; for which I've made a super-random collage from some of the bits that were sitting on my worktable.

ICAD24-18: Off-Prompt

 A random collage in (mostly) pink and white. Vintage ticket background, washi strips, rub-on transfers and fussy-cut butterfly, horoscope wheel and rose... the latter from a book about Cath Kidston fabrics.

ICAD24-17: Plum

Flashing back to a prompt from earlier this week, for which I've doodled with black Letter It Fineliners and white Posca paint pens on a glossy plum/purple color swatch.

ICAD24-16: Calm

At first glance, this might look like a seriously tangential take on the prompt, but, as any oceanographer will tell you, there's literally NOTHING calmer than a squid playing solitaire in a mushroom garden. Obviously!

Dashing Through the Snow

It's the middle of July, which seems like an excellent time for Jingle Belles to team up with our friends at The Double Trouble Challenge, so that you have a chance to participate in TWO challenges with ONE card! As the post title implies, for "Dashing Through the Snow" the brief at Jingle Belles is merely to make a card that features SNOW, whether it be snowflakes, snowmen or a snowy landscape.

As you may know, the "Double" in "Double Trouble" refers to the fact that there are several parts to their challenges, though the only requirement is to play along with Thing 1, which in this case is to make a window or aperture card. But the Double Trouble Gang encourage you to add some fun... try their options by participating in Twisted Sister's Thing 3 and/or Double Dare's Thing 2 to earn additional chances in their random drawing. This time, those twists are as follows:

Remember, you need only make a card featuring some sort of SNOW to enter at Jingle Belles; and the only requirement at Double Trouble is to make a window or aperture card. BUT... if your card has both SNOW and a WINDOW... you can link up on both blogs for a chance at two different prizes!

Here's how I approached both of the challenges this week:

Generally speaking, when I set out to make a window card, I go all out and make it a shaker; so that's what I've done here. Stephanie gave me the adorable Doodlebug Winter Wonderland stamps and dies for my birthday, and I was excited to be able to use them so quickly. I found a few sheets of D-bug's Polar Pals patterned paper to coordinate and used an older set of Spellbinders' Nestabilities to build up that fun scalloppy frame. Inside the shaker I placed a background of pale blue snowflakes, a glittery hill, a handsome yeti and a mix of Eyelet Outlet Snowflake and Round Sequins.

To make this gala Christmas in July celebration even more festive, we have a fun little prize for one randomly selected cardmaker who links a snowy card up at Jingle Belles:

Sunny Studio 6x6 All is Bright paper pad, Inky Antics Winter Song stamp set 

and some gorgeous Crafter's Square gems.

"Dashing Through the Snow" runs at Jingle Belles until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, July 31st. Hop over to see Stephanie's card and link up your own snowy masterpiece.

TREE-Mendous!

The TREE-Mendous new Eyelet Outlet Retro Tree Brads have arrived just in time to celebrate Christmas in July!

 This card features a cluster of said Retro Trees layered over Snowy Trees for a feeling of depth, creating a little forest glade in which the vintage-inspired deer from our Santa and Deer set feels right at home. The background consists of neatly aligned strips of Holly Jolly Washi in traditional red and green.

In addition to these fabulous Retro Trees, the brand new July Release also includes vintage-inspired Angel Brads, Candy Corn and Black Cats. Check them out in the EO Store.

SOS526: Summertime!

This fortnight at Shopping Our Stash we're celebrating SUMMER which means that we'd like to see cards and projects with a summer theme. That could be traveling, gardening, camping, BBQ, beach... whatever says summer to you! 

During most of my childhood, one of my favorite summer activities was going to the beach, or, as we said in the Philadelphia suburbs where I grew up, "down the shore". In my family's case, we often went to Wildwood, NJ and later to Cape May, both of which I still love today. To my knowledge, there are NO flamingoes at the Jersey Shore, nor are there tropical flowers and foliage; but there are lots of seashells. In the case of my card, the shells are from HoneyBee's Seashells Stamp Set c. 2022; the flamingo paper is from 49 and Market's Sunburst collection; the sentiment and foliage stickers are from an older Dear Lizzy line via American Crafts; and the ancient hibiscus stickers are from EK Success. I added brushed gold and pale pink mats, plus a bit of decorative machine stitching and my A7 card was complete.

Visit SOS to see what the rest of the Crew have made, then dust off one (or more!) of your older-bust-still-beloved craft items and make a card to link up with us! The SUMMER Challenge runs through Monday evening, July 29th.

Index Card a Day (Week 7)

We're rounding the corner into the second half of July (already?!) and here's my own output of Index Card Art from this past week:

ICAD24-45: Mandala Monday

Wouldja believe... It's a Marvin Mandel Mandala Monday?! In perhaps the most stunning case of vintage-paper-related serendipity EVER, I found this business card stuck into one book, and the illustration of this (completely unrelated) gentleman in another book about ten minutes later. I went looking for the name "Mandel" in an old telephone book I rescued to use in collages and did NOT find a Marvin, but there were half a dozen others which are partially obscured by the mandala petals. I used a combination of Wendy Vecchi Archival Inks, a white Posca pen and Prismacolor Pencils to add color; and Ranger's Letter It Fineliners for all the shapes. As always, my Helix Circle Maker Tool was invaluable.

ICAD24-44: Seashell

Super-literal take on the prompt: I white-embossed a set of HoneyBee Seashell stamps; blended some of my favorite Wendy Vecchi Archival Inks on top; then splattered and outlined and played with the results.

ICAD24-43: Fragile

 My collage admittedly has a #FRAGILE connection to both the prompt and to reality. But… you know… in a good way! I am especially proud of the way most of the design is built around a similar color palette; AND, especially the fact that the banana, the ballet dancer and the Chinese character for banana all have a similar shape to them. 

ICAD24-42: Off Prompt OSC

And here we have world’s most random One Staple Collage! FYI, One Staple Collage is an ICAD tradition; the brief is to create a collage which is held together with… wait for it… one staple! Slightly trickier than it sounds but a lot of fun!

ICAD24-41: Forest Green

I set out with the intention of working on today’s prompt of #FORESTGREEN and thus handcut some beautiful wonky leafy shapes from every green EXCEPT forest green… then branched off into altered/doodled patterned paper scraps in various shades of blue. But that’s why they’re called “prompts” rather than assignments… they’re meant to get you started and you can go in any direction from there! 

ICAD24-40: Off-Prompt

Today's is actually not my favorite card, although I love the funky ink-splotch colors; and stand by my decision to cut around the flower edge on the right hand side. Plus… to enjoy and learn from the process rather than focusing purely on outcome is (to me!) the true spirit of ICAD, so woohoo!

ICAD24-39: Off-Prompt

Yes, I do tend to save my scraps of patterned paper, even quite small ones that I probably shouldn't bother with, but they're excellent for stamping and paper-piecing, not to mention for those nights when I just feel like cutting out random shapes, stacking them, and arranging the result into a funky pattern. 

Mission: EMBOSS-able!

As you may remember, your mission, this fortnight, should you decide to accept it, is to join the Jingle Belles in creating a holiday card that features heat and/or texture embossing. Hop over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's gorgeous card, and in the meantime here's how I went all EMBOSS-ible this week: 

I stumbled upon this background panel, which, at some unremembered point in the past year or so, I had (apparently) embossed using Memory Box's Poinsettia Corner e/f, colored the raised design with Wendy Vecchi's Leaf Green Ink and Sunflower Liquid Pearls and then set it aside. But this is a very good illustration of why I am a Setter-Aside rather than a Thrower-Out (ok apart from mild hoarding tendencies) and that is because although this did not originally meet whatever my goal or requirements might've been at the time, it was a beautiful background which seriously helped me out on a crowded and busy week. All I had to do to make the panel into a card was add Penny Black Poinsettia and Joy diecuts, plus a couple of coordinating mats et voila! Job done!

Beach, Please!

Life IS better at the beach and summery cards ARE better with Eyelet Outlet Summer Vacation beachy brads! Both of these beachy keen cards feature our Shell Corner Brads and have twine accents strung through a trio of colorful old school 1/8" Round Eyelets; with mats of Shell Washi and extra wide Sky Tape.

The first card also features both shapes from our Seagull Brad Set as well as both Sun and Cloud from that set. 

The second card has a pair of Flip Flops, a Sandcastle and a white Anchor Brad... the latter is masquerading as postage.

Did you know that in addition to the regular search feature, the lefthand side of the Eyelet Outlet Homepage has lots of handy categories like Vacation/Summer; Birds, Bugs and Critters; Food, Drink and Cooking; Animals and lots more; super useful for those times when you'd like to see a lot of options at once!

Week 6: ICAD Roundup

Since the Index Card a Day project runs from June 1st to July 31st, we're now more than halfway through! Here are the cards I've made in the last seven days: 

ICAD24-38: Mandala Monday

It's a Mahalo Mandala Monday, celebrating the fact that I stumbled, almost simultaneously, upon both a library catalog card for a book about Hawaii AND some pre-stamped and already-colored yellow hibiscus... the state flower of Hawaii. You just cannot argue with that kind of serendipity, am I right?!

ICAD24-37: Dashboard

A tangential collage for #DASHBOARD; an antique car on a library card with trading stamps and vintage paper and some abstract rub-on transfers that kinda/sorta look like dashboard gauges...

ICAD24-36: Splash

Flashing back to yesterday’s #SPLASH prompt with a doodled version of one of those Lazy River pools they have at resorts; in this case some of the splashes are neon index cards glued on top

ICAD24-35: Castle

It’s a One Staple Collage featuring vintage paper and illustrations; flashing back to a prompt from a few days ago. Staged on my newest (and also oldest) vintage typewriter; a 1920ish Underwood of surpassing beauty.

ICAD24-34: Panorama

According to Vague Magazine, Panoramic Argyle might be the next big fashion trend... or possibly not; it's hard to tell. Ok, so... SUPER-loose take on today's optional #dyicad2024 prompt of #PANORAMA which is also (unintentionally!) a slightly tangential picture puzzle referencing a Beatles song; whilst also indulging my obsession with argyle. 

ICAD24-33: Off-Prompt

Apparently "Stripes with Doodles" is going to be my default mode this summer when I don't have another idea. And hey... I'm cool with that...

ICAD24-32: Off-Prompt

Not just off-prompt, but without any plan at all! I started out paper piecing… added pattern-enhancing doodles to my scraps of designer paper… and finally built out a weird sort semi-mandala in the leftover space. Not the best thing I've ever made but having started late in the evening of a tiring day with literally NO IDEA what I was going to do, I feel ok with just having made SOMETHING!

My Sweet EMBOSS-able You

This fortnight at Jingle Belles we're asking you to create holiday cards that feature EMBOSSING... either pressure embossing OR heat embossing... or BOTH if you're an over-achiever! 

I am currently somewhat re-obsessed with the emboss/resist technique, so I chose to go with heat embossing. I stamped the gorgeous oversized Snowflake Spin background from Stampendous in Ranger's Clear Emboss It Ink, sprinkled with White e/p and once it was cool I applied a combination of Picked Raspberry, Kitsch Flamingo and Spun Sugar Oxide Inks, which I splattered lightly with a waterbrush for even more variation of shades. The "Merry" die is so old I'm actually not sure who made it, but I love how it looks cut from magenta glitter paper and mounted on some coordinating May Arts ribbon. 

This challenge runs until Wednesday evening, July 17th. Hop over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's beautiful card and start thinking about how you'll approach this Emboss-able Mission!

Happy (Almost) Fourth of July

Tomorrow the USA will celebrate its 248th birthday and here's an appropriately red, white and blue card featuring Eyelet Outlet Flag and Hat Brads, Flag Washi, Heart Tape, Red Jewel Strips and coordinating Star Brads!

Shopping List:

Flag and Hat Brads

Star Brads

Flag Washi

Heart Tape

Red Jewel Strips

Eyelet Outlet has all the embellishments you need for ANY occasion! 

SOS525: NBUS

In case you're wondering, NBUS stands for Never Before Used Stuff; and this fortnight at Shopping Our Stash, we're asking you to create a card that features items in your stash which are more than one year old, but haven't, for whatever reason, been used yet. Here's my card:

In the photo below you can see my Never Before Used item: a fabulous IO stamp set called "Aloha" which Stephanie gave me for my birthday last year (or possibly the year before?!) which I absolutely LOVE but somehow, despite the fact that I've gotten it out periodically and re-admired it, I had still never inked up?! I did my own variation of "spotlight stamping" by using the MISTI (also a gift from Stephanie, quite a few years ago, which I do actually use ALL the time!) to stamp a panel of tropical flowers and leaves. Then I carefully lined up my Altenew Bold Alpha dies to spell "ALOHA" and cut them from the background. I left the surrounding area plain, but used my Tombows to color the flowers and leaves of the diecuts, which I then shadowed with a second set of diecut letters in bold blue, before placing them back in the holes from which they came. I added tiny (ancient!) Prima paper flowers with Eyelet Outlet Pearl centers; added a bold blue mat and a surrounding panel of 49 and Market's Sunburst collection and called it a (sunshine-y, tropical) day!

Take a look over at SOS at what the rest of the Crew have made, then dust off one (or more!) of your Never Before Used items and make a card to link up with us! The NBUS Challenge runs through Monday evening, July 15th.

Week 5: Index Card a Day Round-Up

It's another week of Index Card goodness and a reminder that the Daisy Yellow Art Blog is a fine source of information and inspiration; as are a few selected Instagram accounts including mine (@llaurenb) and the official @indexcardaday feed!

ICAD24-31: Mandala Monday

It’s a loosey-goosey, wavy-gravy, somewhat deconstructed Mandala Monday; Tombows and Letter It Fineliners on an index card divider.

ICAD24-30: Sepia

A super fast One Staple Collage in (mostly) sepia!

ICAD24-29: Off-Prompt

The most random of all random collages everrrrrr?! Off-prompt and a bit fishy on Day 29.

ICAD24-28: Steampunk

A fairly tangential take on Steampunk, lots of vaguely wheel- and cog-ike shapes, glued on top of ink-blended circles of Distress Oxide Inks on a green index card. Not exactly where I thought this would be going when I started out, but that is the fun of ICAD you can take a left turn at any point and wait to see what happens next!

ICAD24-27: Ranunculus

Flashing back to a prompt I skipped last week; at the time I didn't have an interesting idea, but suddenly I thought that if I just kept cutting wonky flower layers and stacking them up, the result would be cool and possibly a bit ranunculus-like, which I think kinda worked! Also a fab use of quite a few patterned paper scraps although I still have PLENTY left... sigh...

ICAD24-26: Strawberry

Not my favorite card ever but... the pattern was fun to doodle and they are more or less recognizable as strawberries so my work here is through!

ICAD24-25-: Off-Prompt

Have already made several doodled cards involving strips or stripes, I decided to try my hand a collage of strips. I chose a few vintage book pages with similar colors, tore them vertically, glued them onto an index card, and added super-simple stitching.

♥♥♥

Holiday Shape Up: Week 2

Cruising into the second week of our Holiday Shape Up festival at Jingle Belles for which, as you'll recall, we're making shaped cards. New Jersey is just one of the states currently under what the weather gurus are calling a heat dome, and the temps for the last 10 days have been in the mid-90's with humidity off the charts. So of course my first thought was to make MITTENS lol!

A few years ago I had downloaded a photo of a beautiful mitten-shaped card, printed it out on cardstock at 4x6" size, used it as a template and raided my stash of ancient Basic Grey holiday patterned paper to make THIS CARD. Luckily, I had saved the template and still had some nice big chunks of BG, so I'm back with the same idea... times two! Basic Grey flower layers, Recollections flair, scraps of felt  trimmings, 7 Gypsies velvet holly leaves, and a couple of buttons from my stash complete this pair of mixy-matchy mitten cards.

Stephanie's card can be seen at Jingle Belles, where, coincidentally, you can also upload your own magnificent shape-card design between now and next Wednesday evening, July 3rd.

Gnome Sweet

The adorable new Eyelet Outlet Girl Gnome Brads have settled in nicely and have teamed up with our Gnome 2 Brads on this extra festive greeting! Grass Tape literally grounds the oversized sentiment and adds a special touch to the envelope along with a strip of Gnome Mushroom Butterfly Tape; while a few Mini Bee Brads are buzzing around happily.

The Eyelet Outlet Store has brads, bling, flowers, enamels and washi tape for literally EVERY occasion you'd care to celebrate!

ICAD2024: Week 4

Another week has rushed by at lightning speed, and here are my ICADs! For more information, inspiration and loads of samples visit @llaurenb and/or @indexcardaday and/or @gypsy999 on Instagram; or check out the Daisy Yellow Art Blog!

ICAD24-24: Mandala Monday

It's a Diamond Dogs Mandala Monday thanks to a leftover diamond-shaped piece of patterned paper leftover from last week's Argyle card, lots and lots of diamondy and circley Letter It Fineliner Doodles, and a few coordinating Tombow Dual Brush Pens.

ICAD24-23: Hummingbird

Super-literal take on the prompt, featuring the eponymous winged creature, a vintage slidemount, some nectar-y flowers, a scrap of leftover map, and some trading stamps... all atop a pale blue, repro library checkout card.

ICAD24-22: Tulip

I was flicking through a vintage nature encyclopedia for some tulips when I stumbled upon this Tulip Shell and let it pivot me into a completely different collage-ical direction!

ICAD24-21: Crystal

At least once a year I try to draw some gems or crystals and I've never felt like I got the facets right, but this one is pretttttty good, lol! It turns out the secret might be to just draw them really really quickly without giving very much thought or care to the process... who knew??!

ICAD24-20: Gold

 I’ve approached "GOLD" via doodles… using three types of gold pen: Posca, Zig Dot Marker, and the good old Gellyroll Metallic. Not the fanciest thing I've ever made, but it was fun to draw and I love how the three pens each have their own version and shade of gold.

ICAD24-19: Alternating

A super-simple, doodle-centric idea, alternating stripes of violet and pale blue Tombow on a gridded index card; with alternating doodles in black Letter It Fineliner or white Posca pen.

ICAD24-18: Beach

I found this pre-watercolored heavy divider card in my ICAD box and added undulating strips of sand and froth; the latter being layers of torn vintage paper of varying patinas brushed with a little bit of Stickles Glitter Glue (the shade is Waterfall, appropriately enough) from Ranger, then machine-stitched for extra texture. 

♥♥♥♥♥