ICAD is Nearly Over? Already?!

It seems like every year of the Index Card a Day Creative Challenge goes by a little bit faster, and this year is no exception. I'm planning to savor the remaining time... one 3x5 card at a time! Here are the most recent seven:

Day 50: Off-Prompt (Mandala Monday)

Layers cut from scraps of patterned paper, with minimal outlining, on my last red index card.

  Day49: Street

Possibly the most literal collage I've ever made! I love how this came out, but my one regret is that the four different street maps I pieced together very carefully, so that the big routes joined up with each other, can literally not be seen AT ALL after I layered the car, index, compass, etc, on top. Ah, well. 

Day 48: Margin

Admittedly a very tangential take on #dyicad2026 Day 48's prompt of #margin in that really only a thicker black line forms the margin between each of my layered, rainbow doodle circles.

Day 47: Backgammon

Circling back to the prompt I skipped on Mandala Monday, with a funky, hand-cut, rainbow version of a backgammon board.

Day 46: Farmer's Market

Technically speaking, I've never seen any PLAID flowers at any Farmer's Market I've ever attended but... a girl can dream, right? Brush markers and Letter It Fineliners on the unlined back of an index card.

Day 45: Thunderstorm

This card has all the ingredients I love: hand-cutting, hand-stitching, and a whimsical approach to the prompt. That said, I can't say I love the finished product very much; but it was fun to make and tomorrow is another #dyicad2026 day!

Day 44: Pewter or Steel

I started out with the pocket watch, the sundial and some of the cogs; thinking, basically "metal circles". Then I found other circles (blackwork lace, celtic knots, horoscope wheels, stylized flowers, geometric patterns, etc) at which time it kind of morphed into "circles of various origin" and I'm fine with that. Let's call this one, "Pewter OR Steel... and Friends"!

ICAD

Another week has passed, June is just about over, so here are the seven Index Cards I've made since the last ICAD round-up:

Day 29: Shibori/ Mandala Monday

Shibori was a prompt I originally skipped over, but this week I had an idea for a shibori-inspired Mandala Monday, so I've circled back. I used Archival Inks to make a rich blue background, then added all my petals and lines with a white Posca Pen. 

Day 28: Coastline

This is what I love about prompts, you can follow them wherever they lead, however tangential. Case in point: Today's #dyicad2026 prompt is #COASTLINE from which my mind drifted to BEACH... and then BOARDWALK... and then (obviously!) CONEY ISLAND! (Best not to think about it too hard, lol!)  I had a lot of fun using ALL my colors of Posca Pens and I love how this turned out. The only problem is, now that I have Coney Island inside my head I *really* want a Clam Roll from Nathan's!

Day 27: Crane

Cranes cut from an old, falling apart bird book. "Habitat" made of hexagons punched from various scraps of book paper, sheet music, etc. and edged with green ink. Even I don't really think these two concepts "go" together... and yet... I really love how this came out. So there.

Day 26: Parterre

A very very funky take on #parterre; really just an excuse to cut somewhat shrub-shaped pieces out of green patterned paper scraps. Non, je ne regrette rien.

Day 25: Penguin

Penguins cannot fly.

I cannot fly.

Therefore... I am a penguin.

Additional evidence: I wear A LOT of black, have a tendency towards embonpoint, love fish and have a rock collection. Yep. Penguin!

Penguin illustration, Archival Ink background, manual typewriting and machine stitching on the unlined back of an index card from the dollar store. Bonus points: This is a KING penguin on a ROYAL typewriter, wahey!!!

Day 24: Atrium

Flashing back to the #atrium prompt, which I skipped the week before last. Admittedly a tangential take but... you know... it's ICAD; and there's no better time in the whole creative year to be tangential, imo!

Day 23: Pomegranate

I skipped over #pomegranate yesterday in #dyicad2026 in favor of Mandala Monday, but then I did think of a fun take, and decided to circle back. One of my favorite things about @indexcardaday is that each year, there's at least one prompt I have to Google to find out what it is. A few years ago, @gypsy999 came up with #ogee and I became obsessed with elongated, repeating S-curve patterns. I confess that it never occurred to me to add stylized pomegranates to the mix... until now, lol!

(Another) ICAD Round-Up

Celebrating another week of hot weather and cool index cards! ♥

Day 30: Mandala Monday

Off-prompt today, the last Mandala Monday of June. I've gone with a very funky, deconstructed version of a mandala, for which I had a lot of fun filling in the doodles with my Letter It Fineliners and doing some shading on the bands of color with my sadly neglected Prismacolor pencils. 

(Bonus Discovery: It turns out said pencils make a pretty cool photo backdrop... just sayin'...)

Day 29: Sunrise

Going a bit tangentially from sunrise (a time of day I dislike seeing) to sunny side up... a type of egg I very much enjoy eating. Handcut and paper-pieced from the Big Box of Scraps.

Day 28: Dinosaur

I'm calling this one, "Unsung Heroes of the English Restoration" a joke which literally nobody but myself will get and I'm fine with that. 

Day 27: Pink

Super scrap-tastic PINK flowers, for which loosely drawing, hand-cutting and pattern stacking are pivotal. The background is a white gridded card which looked so stark next to the vivid blooms that I felt compelled to make a super-fast plaid with some pink brush pens!

Day 26: Fog

Debating between weather fog and brain fog... I wound up splitting the difference. Several shades of blended Ranger Distress Oxide Inks over white embossed text with stenciled letters cut out and popped up.

Day 25: Licorice or Lollipops

Here's a very very tangential take on LOLLIPOPS... they don't have sticks and look more like the swirly peppermint candies which can only be found (as far as I know) next to the cash register in an old-fashioned, family-owned pizza place.

We have an outstanding, creative and delicious local pizza place; if you ever drive 202 in Branchburg NJ you should stop at @dominicks_njboardwalkpizza ♥ They have 6-10 different pies by the slice each day; we especially love their brisket, buffalo chicken and mushroom slices, yum yum!

Day 24: Gemstone

Not the fanciest card I've ever made, but a tiny personal triumph: I've tried time after time after time to draw faceted-looking gemstones and somehow I could never do it... and finally... I can do it! In fact, after the first two, I didn't even need to look at the clipart drawing I Googled to use as a reference! Go, me!

Pink Alexandrites (my birthstone) drawn with a Letter It Fineliner from Ranger; colored with Perfect Pearls (in Blush) and a waterbrush; shadowed and highlighted with pens.

♥♥♥♥♥

Wishing you a wonderful, fun and creative start to the month of July; keep cool and craft on! 

ICAD: Round-Up #3

The weeks are flying past as they do, we're officially into SUMMER and New Jersey is busy setting records for temps and humidity... the only possible reaction is to stay indoors and make art on index cards!

Day 23: Mondrian Mandala Monday

Off-prompt in favor of Mondrian Mandala Monday; continuing a thread started by my Facebook friend Becca Sadler. Becca does a weekly art journal page inspired by the Dutch utopian/abstract artist Piet Mondrian, and I loved the idea so much I've been trying to do a similar style of mandala once a month or so. In this case, @smilynstef had shown me an outstanding piece of sketchbook art (stupidly I didn't save it to give credit, sorry!) with concentric circles of these geometric "dangles" and we both immediately thought it would be perfect for MMM! I used Piet's palette of primary colors and added a few more squares and rectangles of solid color et voila!

Day 22: Aviary

Here's a pretty good example of a card I loved winging it (sorry, for once the pun is unintentional, honest!) but in retrospect wish I had planned/measured a bit better; or possibly made a fold-out double card that would've held my handcut letters in a single line. On the other hand, #ICAD is 100% about process and experimentation so WOOHOO that makes this a big success! 

PS: Those beautiful clipart birds are designed by my friend @ginaisarty and you can find lots of other critters, plants and people in her Redbubble, Zazzle and Teepublic shops; there's a LinkTree in her profile; just sayin'...

Day 21: Onomotopoeia

"Squeak!!!" says the mouse; which in this case means either, "Hooray, I have found the best lunch ever!" or, "Oh dear, I don't think this reed is really strong enough!" Fun fact: "onomotopoeia" neither means nor is spelled the way it sounds!

 

Day 20: Reverse

For which, slightly tangentially, I’ve swapped around my usual convention of a pale/plain background and colorful/detailed focal image. It’s not perfect but it’s interesting… 

Day 18: Turtle

Test-driving a sort of abstract/stylized turtle shell pattern. I painted concentric shapes with a waterbrush and diluted Perfect Pearls pearlescent pigment powders from Ranger (in Perfect Gold, Blue Patina and Forever Green); then after the sturdy divider card (letter "T" o'course) was dry I outlined the shapes with a Letter It Fineliner and added a few details with a white paint pen.

Day 17: Memento

Ok, yes, the prompt is meant to be #memento but I sort of went more #memo because I found this ancient October Afternoon patterned paper with pencils on it and I couldn't resist!

Day 17: Yellow

Circling back to yesterday's #dyicad2025 prompt of #YELLOW which I had skipped in favor of Mandala Monday. I started looking through some books and some scraps for "yellow things" and sort of assumed I would choose one and run with it. Eventually, I decided to use ALL of them... or at least... all the ones I could fit on one index card. Decision made!!! :)

♥♥♥

Have a fun and creative week!

Week 2: Index Card a Day

Time for another retrospective of ICADs, starting with today's extra punny MAN-dala Monday:

Day 16: MANdala Monday

This tiny illustration was on some junk mail last week and I immediately thought, "MAN-dala Monday!" I layered some trading stamps, a frilly round sticker, and my hand drawn rings and petals on a vintage library pocket card for an eclectic (verging on eccentric) take on an ICAD mandala.

Day 15: Off Prompt

Here's a MODIFIED One Staple Collage: The text label, embroidery pattern, trading stamps and roses (they're connected to each other) are all held on by a single staple. The words have been glued onto the label, and the background is rub-on transfers which worked as a resist for some Peeled Paint Distress Ink.

Day 14: Leopard

Here's a card that (imo) epitomizes the "process over outcome" beauty of ICAD. For Day 14's prompt of #leopard I decided to hand-cut two-toned leopard spots from scrap cardstock, ink the edges, layer them, and attach them to the unlined back of a blue index card. I loved making this and I now feel I can confidently reproduce a leopard pattern at any time... but... it's not all that impressive as a finished piece. And I'm fine with that!

Day 13: Iridescent

It's hard to tell from the photo, but under the collage elements and over the mixed media background of stamped/ inked/ rub-on elements there is some gorgeous Ranger Metallic White Texture Paste spread through one of my favorite Dina Wakley Coaster Stencils.

Day 12: Twig

This illustration, which I cut out of an old falling-apart copy of a children's dictionary from the 70's, seems perfect for today's optional #dyicad2025 prompt of #twig and I'm kind of happy with my stylized background of green and leafy washi tapes plus a small frame (also washi).

Day 11: Tide Pool

I've already mentioned how much I love the sea creatures that my friend Gina @ginaisarty designs; so it seemed only right to create a little gelli print #tidepool for them to inhabit.

Day 10: Arrow

About as literal a take on the (optional) theme of #arrow as you could possibly imagine; rendered in hand-cut patterned paper scraps, on a reproduction library pocket card.

♥♥♥

For lots more info and inspiration regarding this fun annual project, check out the ICAD Base page at Daisy Yellow Art or the @indexcardaday account and the #dyicad2025 hashtag on Instagram.

BLOOM!

Whether you are celebrating Easter, Passover, or just some lovely spring weather, I wish you a bloomin' beautiful weekend!

Handcut flowers, leaves, letters and clouds in my Dina Wakley Ledger Journal. 

Also featuring Dina's Collage Paper, Archival Inks and Letter It Fineliners... all of which (and lots more, too!) are available from the fab folk at Ranger Ink.

Whatever else you're doing this weekend, I hope you can sneak in a little time to be creative! ♥

ICAD: The Last Round-Up

How is it possible that it's ALREADY July 31st and thus the final day of ICAD2024?! I'm pretty sure that no summer has ever flown past as quickly as this one. Many thanks to everyone who has played along, followed along, left comments, etc; it's always so much more fun to share ICAD with others. Of course, as always, the biggest and heartiest THANK YOU has to go to Tammy G aka @gypsy999 for devising, hosting, inspiring and cheering us on for another 61 days of creativity and friendship; I don't have enough words to praise a most artful and heartful friend! 

ICAD24-61: Diorama

How do you make a diorama using only index cards? Ummmm... very carefully? No srsly, I wanted to make something three dimensional but using two dimensional supplies (index cards and pens) so I decided the solution was layers. In this case the layers consist of the non-lined sides of four neon index cards, each carrying one component of a jungle scene and each popped up on a layer of foam tape for more height. Starting from the very back we have... the blue sky; then pink flowers (with orange Posca detailing); then green leaves and finally smaller yellow flowers encased in a frame around the edges to literally hold it together. This took a bit of time to construct and involved using the dreaded Xacto Knife BUT... this looks exactly like the picture that was in my head, which always feels like a win, doesn't it? Especially on the 61st and FINAL day of ICAD2024!

ICAD24-60: Planetarium

One last card featuring scraps of patterned paper, handcut shapes, doodles, and machine stitching.

ICAD24-59: Circle

Super-excited that today's prompt serendipitously coincides with my Mandala Monday strand. In my (VAST!) collection of funky vintage things to use in art, I found a few of the old-school 3.5 x 5.5 black and white postcards I'm guessing are from the 1930's or 40's, which happen to be from a collection of Bucks County, Pennsylvania images, which is where I grew up. My mandala is drawn with Posca Pens atop a pc of the northern portion of the Delaware River. I've done a few previous mandalas on postcards or photographs, but usually I feel that I've either covered the original image up too much or not enough... this time I think I hit the Goldilocks Zone (aka "just right"!)

ICAD24-28: Tessellation

I had a general idea of what "tessellation" meant... basically it's a geometric or semi-geometric regular repeating pattern; I didn't realize that technically, to be specifically designated as a tessellation, the pattern needs to have NO spaces and no overlaps! This is what is great about ICAD, you learn so much! I'd love to tell you that I came up with this funky fish pattern on my own but NOOOOOOOO; I did a Google Image Search and this one was a kid's art lesson on Faber-Cassell's website. I used a graphed index card and pre-drew every single one of the fish shapes in pencil, and it still took an embarrassingly long time and a fair amount of erasing but I DID IT! If you want to see really cool, beautiful, effortless-looking  Zentangles (both tessellating and non-tessellating) you should check out my friend and fellow Jersey Girl @Lorraine303 who has MAD SKILLZ in this (and many other) areas of art!

ICAD24-57: Garden

A simple collage consisting of a garden plan illustration and some other vintage paper that is largely hidden by the giant tulip; all atop one of the many cool library checkout cards that my friend Mary aka @millwoodstudioart shared with me. She shared some awesome catalog cards too, such as the one from last week about gardening with children... Thanks, Missus!

ICAD24-56: Playing Cards

Ok go with me on this one, it's a little tangential: doodley diamonds and hearts (or spades) in a wonkily repeating pattern. 

ICAD24-55: Off-Prompt One Staple Collage

Will this be my last #OneStapleCollage of #dyicad2024? Who can say? But it's Day 55 and we're coming down to the wire, so if not the last, probably the penultimate or the antepenultimate. From the bottom working upward, this one consists of: a yellow repro library checkout card; half a Mille Bornes scoresheet; a torn section of a European map (featuring northern Spain); an exotic belly dancer; a sepia-toned cluster of flowering dogwood, and finally a phrase from a Russian-English dictionary. All held together by the eponymous single staple.

ICAD24-54: Off-Prompt

Somewhat revisiting the #RANUNCULUS prompt from weeks and weeks ago; this time as an extra-doodley version in Macro mode. Tombow Dual Brush Pens and Ranger's Letter It Fineliners on an index card divider. Not sure what the "W" stands for... Wonky? Wednesday? Without a clue? 

ICAD24-53: Off-Prompt

Handcut clouds made of layered patterned paper scraps. With lots and lots of doodles on top. 

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.