By the Numbers (week 2)

It's the second week of our "By the Numbers" challenge at Shopping Our Stash, for which we'd like to see cards that feature at least one numeral. Here's my second take on this brief:

We've just had a 21st birthday* in our family, so I broke out my Lawn Fawn Birthday Balloons and paired them with LF's Party Balloons to make a shaker card featuring some of the birthday girl's favorite things, including rainbows, flamingos, sunshine and sweets... all cut from the big box of scraps too pretty to discard!  The background paper is from Lawn Fawn's Hello Sunshine Remix and the sequins are lots of different leftovers, plus some really fun tiny strawberry sprinkles from Dress My Craft.

SOS548: By the Numbers runs until next Monday evening, June 2nd; link your cards at Shopping Our Stash!

*I'm sure glad we grown-ups are not aging at the same rate as the kiddos or else we'd be REALLY OLD by now!!! :) :) :)

Midnight Clear (Week 2)

It's the second week of making cards with transparent elements at Jingle Belles and this time I have a two-fer of shaker cards. See?

Technically these are ordinary cards with shaker tags on them, but you get the idea. I love Sunny Studio's Build a Tag #2 Die Set and that's what I used to make the tags and reinforcers. Then I punched square windows into each tag, backed them with scraps of clear acetate, and made a little winter scene with Eyelet Outlet Glitter Tree Tape, Sparkle White Glitter Tape hills and Snowflake Sequins. I finished off with Snowflake Brads and Penguins or Snowy Trees; then added tag-shaped mats and panels adorned with Glitter Tall Tree Tape, sticker sentiments and a few more sequins. 

Visit the reminder post at Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's second card; then scroll down to the original Midnight Clear post to link up your own CLEARLY awesome creation(s)!

Witch Way to the Candy?!

Nothing says, "Happy Halloween" as well as a witch-shaped shaker card full of Eyelet Outlet Pumpkin Sequins, am I right? Especially one that features the fab new Black Cat and Candy Corn Brads, as well as Spider and Pumpkin Brads not to mention that beautiful new Spider Washi Tape.

Shopping List:

Pumpkin Sequins

Black Cat Brads

Candy Corn Brads

Spider Brads

Pumpkin Brads

Spider Washi Tape

Visit the Eyelet Outlet Online Store for all the creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky Halloween Brads, Tapes and Sequins you could possibly desire! 

Peace on Earth Day!

April 22, 2024 marks the 54th celebration of Earth Day, so this fortnight we Jingle Belles are asking you to help us celebrate by creating holiday cards that feature at least one recycled element.

Here's how I recycled this week: 

I managed to incorporate quite a few recycled items into my card, and am thus feeling quite obnoxiously proud of myself: the pink leopard tissue and snowflake paper were saved from holiday gifts (I backed them with plain white cardstock run through my Xyron machine to make them sturdier); the white and silver layer is the front of a greeting card I received last year; and I made a shaker box using Hero Arts' Woodgrain Frame Infinity Dies cut from the backs of old greeting cards, covered with a piece of clear plastic packaging. In fact, the stamped Sunny Studio Holiday Hugs bear and cup, ancient glitter snowflake, and Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Brads (plus Sequins) are the only new items I've used.

I'm linking up with the Caffeinated Christmas Card Challenge's April event (#CCCC28) Coffee or Cocoa since my bear is drinking a delicious cup of hot chocolate, with a candy cane!

Need more inspiration? Check out the Jingle Belles Earth Day thread to see what we've made for this theme in years past! Then create your own masterpiece featuring a recycled element and link it on the Earth Day post at Jingle Belles by 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, April 24th. 

Hope Your Birthday...

...is A SMASH! The brand new Eyelet Outlet Pinata Brads are as cute as can be AND extremely pun-friendly, what could be better? This shaker card, filled with coordinating EO Round Sequins and surrounded by a mat of green, orange and blue Zig Zag Washi, captures the color and movement of an actual pinata, with no mess to clean up afterwards!

The other new Fall 2023 Eyelet Outlet Brads include the adorable fall-friendly Acorn and Squirrel set as well as beautiful Sugar Skull Brads, just in time for Dia de los Muertos!

Shake It Up!

This fortnight at Shopping Our Stash we're celebrating my very favorite type of interactive greeting: the mighty Shaker Card! It can be plain or fancy, themed or all-occasion, any color, shape, size or style you'd like, just make sure you Shake It Up!    

I needed a card for a fellow book-lover, and was in the mood to color (!) so I grabbed my Tombows and Avery Elle's Feels Like Home Add On set, which I only got last year at Paper Anthology, but... those Nestabilities Ovals have to be 15+ years old; the Eyelet Outlet Book Brads and Book Tape date back to circa 2017 (admittedly I've restocked both, more than once) and the texty paper is so old I'm not sure whose it was anymore (it's paper-weight though, and not cardstock, which is a clue that it's got some age, lol). I had a hard time choosing between the text as background and Simple Stories' whimsical cloud paper, so I decided to split the difference, cut out the clouds and added them atop the text.

I built the shaker window upwards by cutting five or six frames with the nested oval dies and stacking them. The acetate oval is sandwiched between the top two frame layers and cardstock covered with strips of Book Tape seals in the EO Star Sequins.

Head over to Shopping Our Stash to see the super-inspiring cards the rest of the Crew have made, then start planning how YOU will Shake It Up! This challenge runs until Monday evening, September 25th.

Thank You, Santa!

Over at Jingle Belles, we're still showing off the goodies that Santa brought us. Or... as in this case... the goodies we chose for ourselves, in order to help the big guy out! I saw Doodlebug's Candy Cane Lane collection online in December and asked my friend Elisabeth from Paper Anthology to order it for me; and like all the Doodlebug sets I've ever seen, it's actually even cuter in real life!

Nearly everything on the card is from Candy Cane Lane: the paper with the cute houses, the dimensional truck and tree stickers, the sentiment strip, and the little hearts and snowflakes. I made a shaker window using my ancient heart Nesties, filled it with a snowy sequin mix leftover from a class last year and set it all on a blue plaid background from an older D-bug set. This card is an A6 and despite the layer of foam tape to accommodate the shaker window, is flat enough to mail... woohoo!

Hop over to Jingle Belles to see what Stephanie has made and check out the cool little prize that one randomly selected cardmaker will score, just for linking up with us this fortnight!

New Class!

Lawnfawnatics (and all others!) are invited to join me at Paper Anthology, in Kenvil, NJ for my newest class, "Fawn Fun in the Summertime" a cute and colorful class featuring the tiny Lawn Fawn critters from Beary Rainy Day, Gnome Sweet Gnome and Berry Special paired with chunky Pinkfresh Studio diecut alphabets and some truly diabolical (...in a good way, lol...) puns!

We’ll make a square shaker card, a slimline and an A2 greeting. Dates available are currently Monday, June 27th from 11am to 2pm and Saturday, July 16th from 12-3pm; but stay tuned for a third date to be announced! Visit the Paper Anthology Blog or the Class Page for all the details!

Yeti or Not

It's week two of our Jingle Belles Christmas Creature celebration, and you still have time to join the fun! This week I've made a little winter landscape in shaker card form, for my adorable Lawn Fawn Yeti to inhabit. The background is several scraps of miscellaneous snowy patterned papers, and the shaker is full of Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Sequins.

Be sure to visit Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's card, and start planning what you'll make!

It's the 14th of February!

I hope you'll receive your fair share love and treats today, whether they be from a Valentine, a GAL-entine, or something special from you to you! Here's a "HEART-y" shaker card featuring Avery Elle's Oval Burst Elle-ments Die which I talk more about on The Ink Pad Blog today.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow

In my opinion, BY FAR the best place for snow is on cards, so that's what we'd like to see at Shopping Our Stash this fortnight. Snowmen, snowflakes, snowy landscapes... if it's frosty and white, you're good to go! Here's what I made:

I got that sweet Happy Snowman (and a few other goodies) with a Pretty Pink Posh giftcard I won in the Coffee Lovers' Hop a couple of years ago, and I suppose at some point he will stop being the first thing I think of when you say "Snow Card" but that is not yet the case, lol. He matches the snowdudes on my ancient Basic Grey patterned paper perfectly, and my newish Taylored Expressions sentiment fit perfectly under my heart shaped shaker window; go, me! :)

Ski, sled, toboggan, ice skate or snowmobile over to SOS to see the crew's cards, then link up and join the fun!

Shake Things Up

I don't make enough shaker cards, which is a shame because I quite like making them and know that folks love to receive them. So when I needed a second card for our Jingle Belles theme, "It Came Upon a Midnight CLEAR" I thought a shaker, with it's acetate window, would be a great way to incorporate a see-though element and have some fun with the interactive format.

My friend Elisabeth at Paper Anthology special-ordered this beautiful Tim Holtz/Sizzix Bigz Ice Skates die for me in January, and I absolutely loooooooove it, so it's a bit of a mystery that I have somehow not used it until now?? I'm really pleased with my card, though, so I'm sure I'll be using it again soon. I cut the shoe part of the skates from an older Ciao Bella collection; and the blades from matte silver metallic cardstock. The background of the card consists of two beautiful rich purple papers from Blue Fern Studios' Eclectic Charm line, and the Hero Arts Snowflake Cluster is cut from silver Non-Shed Glitter Paper. I made a custom mix of Eyelet Outlet Sequins, featuring some Round, some Snowflake and some Stars.

Be sure to visit Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's clearly beautiful card and link up your own!

Peace on EARTH DAY!

This is one of my favorite Jingle Belles challenges, we've celebrated Earth Day each year since 2011, by making holiday cards that include a re-cycled, re-used or up-cycled ingredient! It's easier than you might think: upcycle a pretty tissue box, reuse those beautiful old xmas cards you couldn't bear to toss, recycle a piece of plastic packaging as the window in a shaker card... the possibilities are almost endless. Here are my "ingredients":

The beautiful backers from Prima flowers and Little Birdie chipboard, some old paint chips and (not pictured) another piece of white on white cardstock that was from... shoelaces?? (it was pretty, so I saved it, lol!) and some clear plastic from a salad bar container that I used for the shaker window in my card, which looks like this:

Ok, so... I think you can see where each element ended up, right? The deer is diecut from the woodgrain packaging; the trees from the paint chips. The Prima ledger papery piece is the inside of the shaker and the white unknown packaging is the larger snowflake. I've also got one or two new(ish) things: Simple Stories woodgrain and snowflake paper, Best Creation Glitter cardstock and some brand new Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Sequins inside the shaker!

Jump over to Jingle Belles and see Stephanie's awesome card (trust me, it's a goodie!) then start raiding the recycling, the trash and that box of "too-pretty-to-toss-out" things to make your own creation! ♥

Happy, Hoppy, Easter

Easter is hopping our way pretty quickly, but there's still time to make a few cards for somebunny special! And of course Eyelet Outlet has all the brads, tape, bling and sequins you could possibly need. I am not the best engineer in the world, but I couldn't resist making a fun Easter shaker card:

This might be the deepest shaker card of all time, it can very nearly qualify as a diorama, lol! I was trying to make a little scene for the adorable Rabbit Brads to inhabit, and of course I had to hide some Colored Eggs in the tall grass; so somehow the layers just kept increasing. Plus it was a beautiful day so I needed Sun and Cloud Brads. Then obviously it wouldn't be a shaker card without some lovely pale blue Sequins to match the sky!

Hop on over to the Eyelet Outlet Store where there are lots more Easter treats, like Chicks, Pastel Rabbits, Chocolate Bunny Brads and did I mention the Washi Tape...? ;)