ICAD 2025: First Full Week

It's Mandala Monday and time for a round-up of the first full week of ICADs... (short for Index Card a Day <--click the bold italic text to read all about it!) and here they are right now!

Day 9: Embroidery

Most of the time I go off-prompt for Mandala Monday, but in this case the official prompt of #embroidery was quite an easy fit! Vintage embroidery diagrams + some coordinating crochet photos + hand stitching + additional line drawings = joy!

Day 8: Sorbet

In retrospect, this is probably a bit more "sherbet" than "sorbet" but it's still scoops of brightness... and a good excuse to blend some Distress Oxide inks through simple circle stencils.

Day 7: Midnight

I traced one of Dina Wakley's Old School Silhouette stencils on the back of a photo of the Rosette Nebula, cut it out, then layered it onto a photo of the moon. I had planned to add a lot more layers and details, but fell in love with just the stark outlines, so I put some text on and left it there. 

Day 6: Pretzel

I've done a surface pattern of sorts by drawing a wonky-but-recognizable* pretzel on a pink index card, cutting it out, tracing it onto scraps of tan and brown patterned papers, and gluing them to a gridded card. 

*rendering is my weakest skill; my highest drawing aspiration is basically just to end up with something recognizable!

Day 5: Hydrangea

I used a waterbrush to pick up ink from a few shades of purple and green Tombows and painted my stylized blooms on an extra sturdy index card divider… the H one; obviously!

Day 4: Iguana

Fanciful lizardy letters, clouds, ground and sky… all handcut from colorful index cards.

Day 3: Cobalt(ish)

Ok technically, I just went with lots of shades of blue, because I was more interested in constructing my first #OneStapleCollage of the 2025 ICAD season. What's a One Staple Collage? Well, it's an ICAD tradition that goes back at least a decade when Tammy G. posted a brainstorming list of collage styles and one of them was "Stapled Collage" which totally intrigued me and which, for some reason, I immediately interpreted as being a collage held together with ONE staple! It's one of my favorite styles to revisit and I'd invite all ICAD-ians to try it at least once. It's a bit different than a regular collage and possibly more challenging than you think. Since there is only ONE point of attachment, you basically need to construct a stack of items with interesting edges, and try not to bury the best bits under something larger lol. In case the staple blends in a bit too well here, I will disclose that it is placed vertically at the corner of the front window of the charming vintage Lancia motorcar.

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Check out @indexcardaday feed on Instagram for all the official news and prompts; while the hashtag #dyicad2025 will show you what all the ICADians and ICADettes have made so far!

ABC's of Art Journaling

Or perhaps Art Journaling with ABC's would be a more accurate title. This double page in my Dina Wakley Ledger Journal started the same way a lot of my late night "recreational" pages do: without a plan; and featuring the supplies that were already out on my worktable.

In this case that included a bunch of bright and blend-able Distress Oxide Inks, some Dina Wakley MEdia Stencils and a little puddle of leftover White Gesso that needed to be used up before it dried out.

There's no particular focal point to this, but it feels finished to me, at the moment, anyway. I hope you'll find time this weekend to make some recreational art!

JB2509: Week 2

It's the second week of our Ornamental Color Challenge at Jingle Belles, and here's a reminder of the palette; of which we'd like to see you use three (or more!) colors:

And here's my card:

This week, I was inspired by the inspiration photo itself, so I made an ink-blended background using Distress Oxide Inks in the shades closest (imo) to the top three colors in the palette: Uncharted Mariner, Broken China and Speckled Egg. Then I embossed the panel using Spellbinders' Forevergreen e/f and flicked some watered down Liquid Pearls (in White Opal and Gold Pearl) on top. I made a large snowflake stack to stand in for the fancy bauble in the photo and finished the whole thing with some clear gems that look a bit like the bokeh fairy lights.

Check out Stephanie's card and the little prize one lucky random cardmaker will score by linking up with us at Jingle Belles this fortnight. JB2509: Ornamental Color Challenge runs until the evening of Wednesday, May 7th.

MM09: Oxide Ink Blending

Sometimes you just want to sit and blend your favorite analogous Distress Oxide Inks in a big concentric circles, am I right? Ok, maybe that's just me... but after I finished blending and splashing and speckling with the Oxides, I drew a mandala on top with my Letter it Fineliners and added accents to some of the detail shapes with coordinating colors of Tombow Dual Brush Pens. And thus we have a Super Sunshiney Mandala for the first Monday of March!

All That Glitters...

...doesn't necessarily show up well in a photograph. Case in point: this card, made for our Glitter Me Happy challenge at Shopping Our Stash, has three different shades of Stickles Glitter Glue on the watercolored flowers and foliage, plus a mat of salmon pink glitter paper. Can you tell that from the pic? Nope! It's still a pretty card, though, and a nice reminder that you still have a week to participate in the current challenge.

This card is a triumph of stash-usage in that nearly everything on it is not only elderly, it was mostly leftover bits that were ready to roll. I used Distress Oxide Inks to make an ink-blended sunset; placed the (leftover, white glossy) Honey Bee Palm Frond panel on top and matted on the salmon glitter cardstock. I added Stickles to the pre-diecut Lawn Fawn Happy Hibiscus and Tropical Leaf (in Sunburst, Wine Cellar and Garden State) and cut stamens from a scrap of bright yellow glitter paper which... you guessed it... doesn't show up either! The sentiment is from an older set of Paper Rose Studio Sentiment Sheets and the small scattering of bright pink sequins are from Eyelet Outlet.

SOS539: Glitter Me Happy runs until the evening of Monday, January 27, 2025, so join us today!

SOS536: Winter Wishes

Here's a December challenge with a TWIST from Shopping Our Stash: Make a card with a winter theme but... NOT Holiday!!! Here's what I made:

I went with a snowy theme so I could use my older-but-still-beloved Taylored Expressions Winter Wishes stamp set for the sentiment. The rest of the card is just diecuts from scraps of specialty cardstock: Impression Obsession's awesome Birch Trees and Deer Trio have to be 15 years old, but I still use them a lot; The woodgrain frame is from a set of Hero Arts Infinity Dies from maybe three or four years ago. The Simon Hurley Stitched Snowflakes Background Stamp (the very bottom layer of the collage) is probably only a year or so old, but already feels like a permanent "go-to" item. I embossed it with Ranger's Cottontail Embossing Powder which puffs up a bit more than ordinary white e/p and a matte/spongy texture that I love. The snowy ombre blue sky was made by blending Prize Ribbon, Uncharted Mariner and Tumbled Glass Distress Oxides really well; then splashing clear water on top, waiting thirty seconds and blotting it off with a tissue. I'm thinking about making a few more versions of this in different colorways, so that when it's time to write those post-holiday thank you notes, I'll be READY! 

SOS536: Winter (But NOT Holiday) Challenge runs until Monday evening, December 16th and we'd love for you to join us. Why not check out what the rest of The Crew have made, then start planning your own Wintery masterpiece?

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!

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.

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Aall & Create for One and Aall!

New Jersey crafters, I'd love for you to come and get INKY with me at Paper Anthology! In my new class, "Let's Get INKY" we’ll blend Ranger's Distress Oxide Inks on plain cardstock, through a stencil and atop white-embossing; then we’ll stamp, we’ll stencil, we’ll overstamp in Ranger Archivals, we’ll stencil a bit more, we’ll do a little bit of coloring (with Tombow Dual Brush Pens), we’ll diecut and… well, we will generally celebrate all the stamping techniques that made us love this hobby, but we’ll revisit them in new ways for a fresh, eclectic look. This class features stamps, stencils, dies and gorgeous butterfly ephemera from Aall & Create as well as Ranger Inks. Details dates and sign-up info on the Paper Anthology Blog!

New Art Journal

I will take any excuse to sit and make a random collage, and the christening of my brand new Dina Wakley 6x6 Kraft Journal from Ranger is definitely the perfect time to combine some of my favorite vintage goodies (sheet music, nature illustrations) and some of my favorite Dina elements (Collage Paper, Typed Ledgers) and even a brand new Simon Hurley create. stamp set (Watercolor Flowers).

I made a background of torn, strongly patina-ed, sheet music layered over a few different ledgers, then added bits of collaged script on top. I inked up some of the larger Watercolor Flowers with a combination of Oxide Inks (Prize Ribbon, Wilted Violet and Chipped Sapphire) then misted the stamps lightly with water to get sort of a blurry, faded look... like vintage fabric. 

I put the tissue paper lady on top, having selectively inked and shadowed her face; then added a cluster of white flowers from a gardening book and a hummingbird from one of those free giveaway calendars that my mom always saves for me. 

I could easily write more about this spread, but the fact is, my lovely little journal has 63 more blank pages and I could be adorning them, so I'll sign off for now!

Jingle, Jingle, Jingle

It's the second week of our "Christmas Bells" prompt at Jingle Belles and this one is extra special for me as this design is part of my very first Holiday Jumpstart Card Kit from Paper Anthology. I'll tell you more about that in a minute, but first, here's the card:

Admittedly, there's only one jingle bell in Creative Expressions' Jingle All the Way die, but the sentiment is also bell-related, so I feel good about my choice. I cut the centerpiece from silver metallic paper and backed it with a perfectly sized diecut oval (also in the die set) on which I've ink-blended Distress Oxides in Chipped Sapphire, Prize Ribbon and Salty Ocean. I added texture to the background with Taylored Expressions Sheet Music Embossing Folder, which I softly inked as well. A few accents of Liquid Pearls, and a seam binding bow complete the design.

So what's this Holiday Jumpstart Kit from Paper Anthology? It's basically everything you need (except ink and adhesive) to complete FIVE copies of the card above. To illustrate, I chose to make the five sample cards using five different colorways, and I've included the recipes for those in the kit, but you can make them all the same OR rock your own favorite shades. For that matter, this design will work with ANY combination of blendable dye or hybrid inks you love. In the kit, you'll get: 

• Five white A2 tent fold card bases; 
• Five white panels embossed with the Sheet Music design; 
• Five plain white ovals of nice sturdy cardstock to create your own blendy goodness; 
• Five silver metallic cardstock "Jingle All the Way" diecuts;  
• Enough white seam binding to create five bows; 
• Complete directions, product details and full color photos. 

These kits are available in-store and online at Paper Anthology. If you'd like a little bit of a (ahem sorry, gotta say the name again lol) Holiday Jumpstart, I hope you'll check them out.

Meanwhile, the "Christmas Bells" challenge runs at Jingle Belles until 6pm on Wednesday, 1/25/23, so I hope you'll go and see what loveliness Stephanie has created to inspire you!

Flashy, Splashy Mandala Monday

I've been shamefully neglecting my Dina Wakley MEdia Blue Edition Journal, and this page isn't nearly mixed media enough to do it justice. But I had a lot of fun blending (and blending and blending) lots of blue and green shades of Distress Oxide Inks, both wet and dry, on one of the super-heavyweight cotton rag paper pages, then flicking it with White Gloss Spray and adding outlines. I almost feel like this needs... one... more... thing...; so if you see it again in a few weeks' time, act surprised, k?

Uncharted Mariner, Tumbled Glass, Salvaged Patina, Cracked Pistachio Twisted Citron 

and Squeezed Lemonade Distress Oxides; Black Letter It Fineliner; White .7 Posca Paint Pen

 

Hello, Sketchbook!

It's a Wide Horizons Mandala Monday as I jump back into my 7x10" sketchbook after two months working on 3 x 5" index cards. This mandala morphed itself out of a mistake: as I started to softly ink the rings, the edge of my fingertip dauber caught the paper and made a big dark streak. I thought about flipping over the page, but then I decided to add streaks to some of the other rings et voila... it turned out way cooler than my intention of a smoothly blended pastel rainbow. Chalk one up for serendipity, it's a nice way to start another hot (HOT!) summer week!

Streaky rings of Distress Oxide Inks in: Tumbled Glass, Salvaged Patina, Cracked Pistachio, Squeezed Lemonade, Dried Marigold, Spun Sugar and Saltwater Taffy; Lines added with Black Letter It Fineliners; White Posca Pen details.

Hello, Inky Goodness

This fortnight at Shopping Our Stash we are, "Blending In" by which we mean we'd like to see cards and projects that feature ink blending. Dye inks, pigment inks, alcohol inks... any kind of ink you feel like using. I chose Ranger's Distress Oxides because they are the creamiest; and because I just got my hands on the newest shade, Uncharted Mariner and I was excited to see how it fit in with the rest of the line. Don't worry though, even though the ink is new, everything else involved in this card is exceedingly elderly, I promise!

First the blends: I don't suppose anyone will be surprised to hear that Uncharted Mariner pairs very well indeed with all of the darker blues and greens in the Ranger Distress lineup. Blueprint Sketch, Prize Ribbon, Rustic Wilderness and Evergreen Bough make for especially nice transitions, imo. From there you can happily head into lighter blues, purples and more. I also liked the color shift from Broken China into Uncharted Mariner, but I found that I needed to do a bit more overlapping of the two colors because there is a bit of a gulf between the intensity of the two shades.

Once I had a bit of a play with the blends themselves, I started adding more inky goodness in the form of stamping and stenciling. (Sorry, I used too many different items to list them all AND most are no longer available anyway; on the plus side, you could do this with ANY combination of stamps and stencils you like!) I also added another layer of texture by using some of my favorite (also ancient!) embossing folders and on a couple of them I rubbed my Glacier White Pigment Ink Pad on top for extra definition. I had seen this done on top of darkish watercolor and admittedly the white stood out with more contrast than it does on top of the un-set Oxide blends, but it's still a cool technique.

When all of my panels were finished and dry, the hardest part was choosing which one to make into a card first. But then I stumbled upon my old, but still beloved, Dina Wakley Scribbly Birdies and Small Scribbly Birds and that made it pretty easy. I stamped them on some older gel-printed panels, cut them out, and added them --with a bit of vintage sheet music and some Big Chat Stickers to complete the design.

Be sure to check out the Crew Cards over at Shopping Our Stash, then start planning how you'll be "Blending In" with us!

It's Ombre, Hombre!

We're cruising into our second week of ombre-centric cards at Jingle Belles and this time I've created my own version by blending six different shades of Distress Oxide Inks from Ranger through an older Hero Arts Stencil.

There are many lovely shades of green in the Distress line, and it's totally possible to make an absolutely seamless series of tone-into-tone. But instead, I decided to work the overlapping blend to include some of my favorite shades in order of intensity rather than strictly by hue. I used Twisted Citron, Cracked Pistachio, Mowed Lawn, Evergreen Bough, Pine Needles and Rustic Wilderness. Hero Arts' Forest Scene stencil is no longer in print, but honestly, this technique would work with ANY stencil; or alternately as an emboss/resist technique using any larger background type stamp.

Be sure to check out Stephanie's beautiful card at Jingle Belles and start planning what you will make!

Scribble Sticks!

It's a softly colorful Mandala Monday made with Dina Wakley MEdia Scribble Sticks in my Dina Blue Edition Journal. 

Like most mixed media adventures, this was composed in a few sessions, to allow drying time (and occasionally thinking time, lol) between steps. I drew and colored the basic shapes with wet Scribble Sticks (from Set Three, which has the cool metallic shades) on one of the bright white super-heavy watercolor paper pages in the journal (there are also blue denim and creamy colored burlap pages). After it was completely dry, I added assorted stencil patterns (including Tim Holtz's Bubble and Flourish Patterns) in coordinating Distress Oxide Inks and outlined with a .01 Letter It Fineliner. To finish up, I added a few additional details with colored pens and a tiny bit of handstitching around the central circle.

If you've never used Scribble Sticks, I highly recommend watching a Dina Wakley video or two to see how they work and get a few ideas. Actually, I highly recommend Dina's videos to everyone because she is just such a joy to watch when she's creating! In fact, here's a great demo that shows the Blue Journal's variety of page styles and ways to use them.

"Oh Christmas Stencil...

...Oh Christmas Stencil!" Admittedly, there's no such song, but nevertheless, this fortnight at Jingle Belles we are making holiday cards that celebrate stencils, whether they are used as the focal point of the design, an interesting custom-color background, or just a pretty accent. Don't have any stencils? Make your own, like I did, using just my ancient circle punches and some sturdy cardstock! The details on that process are below, but first I should probably show you my cards... because yes... my blue-ish bokeh background turned out to be big enough for two cards!

I made my Bokeh "Stencil" by using my four smallest circle punches (pretty far apart) on a scrap of glossy white cardstock. Then I blended Villainous Potion and Prize Ribbon Distress Oxides onto a piece of bristol board, and randomly added circles of various blue, purple and pink Oxides through the punched circles with a fingertip sponge dauber. Easy peasy!

When the background was finished, I blotted it very gently with a tissue and set it aside for a few minutes to dry while I assembled my snowflakes, created with Tim Holtz's Stacked Snowflakes die. I've got layers of textured cardstock, shimmer cardstock, glitter cardstock, even some pretty purple giftwrap. The sentiments are from Elizabeth Craft Designs' "Winter Wishes" word set and the mats are various offcuts of coordinating cardstock.

Head over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's card, then start sifting through your stencils to decide what you will make!

Stencils and Sealing Wax

Two of my all-time favorite discoveries during my time at The Ink Pad are journal keeping in a Traveler's Notebook, and the nostalgic joy of Sealing Wax. And happily, this post has BOTH of those; and right now you can discover either of them at 30% off, while the brick-and-mortar store closing sale continues.

There are still a few 2022 dated Traveler's Notebook Refills available in both Regular and Passport sizes, including the Weekly Vertical with Memo edition that I'm working in here. There are also lots of different undated refills, covers and accessories, and this is a great time to take a look at those! 

I've decorated this page and a sweet little White Glossy #2 Tag with our friend Linda Edkins Wyatt's Lemurian Garden Stencils from StencilGirl, some rich shades of Distress Oxide Inks and Blank Classic Fleur-de-Lis Wax Seals. Of course there are loads of Wax Seals with Initials and Icons, but the cool thing about the blanks (which come in round and square shapes) is that you can use them to impress tiny Pressed Dried Flowers into the wax for a really beautiful and striking effect. 

Please note that while The Ink Pad's Chelsea location will be closing mid February, The Ink Pad Online will continue for your shopping convenience!

Hexies + Doodles +Thanks

Michelle Ward's Stamps and Stencils designed exclusively for The Ink Pad have a great NYC vibe, but they don't necessarily need to be used only for New York themed cards and layouts. For example, the Large Hex Pattern Stencil makes a fantastic pattern that works for any occasion; and Michelle's Dance Line Stamp Set has some fabulous art deco detailing as well as the two beautiful Dance Line silhouettes AND two very useful sentiments, as well. This card is on The Ink Pad Blog today, I hope you'll head over there and read all about it!

It's Christmastime in the City

There's something magical about snowglobes, and luckily it's very easy to make any winter or holiday scene into a snowglobe card. In this example, I've used Michelle Ward's beautiful NYC Skyline Stamp against a background of blended Distress Oxide Inks, for a wintery nighttime scene. You can read all about it on The Ink Pad Blog.