Tic- Tac-TWO?

For the second week at Jingle Belles, we're playing Tree Skirt Tic-Tac-Toe, which is kind of a holiday cardmaking version of  "Beach Blanket Bingo"! You still have time to join us; all you have to do is choose a row (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) and create a holiday card featuring all three elements in that row. Please note that it's fine to use more than one snowman; more than one diecut; red AND green; or a single flower, even! If this sounds like fun, then let's get going:

Here's my card this week:

I chose the right-hand vertical column, which gave me: Dry or Heat Embossing + Ribbon + Stamping. I'll admit I did that partially because I unexpectedly rediscovered my Dina Wakley Soaring embossing folder and once I saw it, I HAD TO use it immediately. My ribbon is of the gorgeous, pink, semi-sheer May Arts variety (which I think you'll agree stages really well!) And finally, my stamping is just the sentiment (from Taylored Expressions' Flip the Snowflake set) but I chalked up a second type of embossing by using Ranger's lovely Pink e/p. I diecut Hero Arts' Snowflake Corner twice (from pale pink and also silver glitter cardstock) and added a single Eyelet Outlet 1.5" Snowflake Bling to give it even more sparkle.

JB2616: Tree Skirt Tic-Tac-Toe runs until 6pm (Eastern) next Wednesday, August 12th. Link your totally terrific Tic-Tac-Toe cards at Jingle Belles! 

Birthday Grumplings

Some folks enjoy celebrating their birthday... Grumplings enjoy NOT enjoying celebrating their birthday! Luckily Eyelet Outlet Birthday Brads and Washi Tape always look good. This card features Happy Birthday Foil Washi Tape, Pastel Banner Brads, Party Hat, Candle, Stitched Flower Brads, Cupcake Swirl, Pinata Brads, Heart Brads and an Ice Cream Brad.

Grumpy Birthday Shopping List:

Pastel Banner Brads

Party Hat Brads

Candle Brads

Stitched Flower Brads

Cupcake Swirl Brads

Pinata Brads

Heart Brads

Ice Cream Brads

Happy Birthday Foil Washi Tape

All the embellies you could possibly need to make your next birthday, anniversary or all-occasion card are available in the Eyelet Outlet Store!

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?

Don't Make Me Laugh!

Unless you're participating in this fortnight's Jingle Belles challenge, "Ho Ha Ha" in which case, making us laugh, chuckle or smile is EXACTLY what we'd like you to do; by making a card that's funny, punny, silly or snarky. Here's what I made this week:

I loved Stephanie's Taylored Expressions Grumpling card from last week, and it reminded me that I own the Mythical Grumplings stamp set, with it's supercute sourpuss of a yeti, to whom I've given an Eyelet Outlet Santa Hat Brad. I used my (sadly out of print) Stamplorations' "Jingle All the Way" die for the top part of my sentiment panel, and computer-generated the rest, using a free font called Bohemian Typewriter. I used a nice big Nestabilities label die on the panel and matted it on coordinating cardstock; then added the whole thing to a piece of offset chevron patterned paper... (so ancient I have no idea who made it) ...which I augmented with some skinny washi tape strips.

You still have until next Wednesday evening (9-25) to link up your own humorous holiday card(s) at Jingle Belles!

The Last SOS of 2023

For this year's final challenge at Shopping Our Stash (we're taking a short break and will return on January 16th!) let's go with the creative flow and showcase the last HOLIDAY cards of 2023: Christmas, belated Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Solstice, New Year... if it's a December holiday, it's fair game!

I needed a few fast Christmas cards, so luckily I could Shop My Stash and use up all some of the leftover diecuts from the December Holiday Jumpstart kit I made for Paper Anthology, here's a pic of the final version, for reference:

I don't know about you, but a great many of my projects start out by trying multiple versions of the various pieces. In this case, you can see that I was already sure what papers and dies I'd use... but which would be used for which underwent quite a few different options. 

Luckily, even the "rejected" bits looked well together and by pulling in a few pre-diecut backgrounds and extra bits I made both of these A6 cards in about fifteen minutes!

For the record, the deer are from Taylored Expressions' Woodland Silhouettes 1 and the Evergreens are hers as well. The arched frame and backer are Memory Box's Winter Wood Dome Layer and Nested Globes, respectively; that coverplate is older and I *think* was Pinkfresh; Lawn Fawn's Knit Picky, Spiffier Speckles and Woodgrain Cardstock feature prominently, not to mention various scraps of metallic, velvet and glitter papers.

SOS506: Color Me Beautiful

This fortnight at Shopping Our Stash we're busting out our favorite coloring techniques (watercolors, pencils, markers, etc.) and using them to make fun and fanciful cards. Here's mine:

I have several favorite coloring techniques, but my go-to is to "basecoat" the images with the lightest possible shade of Tombow Dual Brush Pen, then add a little shading and detail with my Prismacolor Pencils. For this card I've used all of the above on one of my favorite stamp sets, Taylored Expressions' Mythical Grumplings. I've used mostly scraps of patterned paper, all of a goodly age... for example... that paper with the candles and also the one with the cupcakes are both from Junkitz, which, if you remember them, you may have been a papercrafter for as long as I have! ;)

Be sure to check out what the crew have made at Shopping Our Stash, then start planning how YOU will "Color Me Beautiful"!

SOS504: Welcome to the Jungle

If you've guessed that this fortnight's challenge at Shopping Our Stash is to create a card or project which features ANY wild animal, then hurray, I can skip right to the part where I show you my card:

I had nearly forgotten about these adorable Stampendous Peeking Pals, but when I found them again I couldn't wait to stamp and color them. I chose an ancient cloud paper to make a background, cut it into a heart for them to "peek" out of, then added a few coordinating mats and lots of Lawn Fawn Tropical Leaves which I diecut from scraps. The sentiment is a Dina Wakley "Happy Birthday" stamp combined with a Taylored Expressions Simple Strip.

Remember that even though the challenge is called, "Welcome to the Jungle" your card can feature ANY type of wild animal. This challenge runs until Monday evening, September 11th. Why not hop over to SOS to see the inspiring cards the rest of the crew have made!

Make Mine a TALL One

A tall card, that is. Which is what we used to call Slimline cards, back in the day. It's also what we're celebrating this fortnight at Shopping Our Stash, so break out your tall skinny envelopes and a few supplies you haven't used in a bit, to make a card to link up with us. Here's what I made.

When I started thinking about "Tall" cards it reminded me that I have a super cute older stamp set with a giraffe in it (technically it's "Peeking Pals" from Stampendous) that is quite fun to color with Tombows and shade with Prismacolor pencils. So much so, that I made a double set of critters in order to end up with two cards; definitely a boon going into the summer birthday season. The sentiments are from Taylored Expressions' Big Bold Birthday set, which Stephanie gave me over a year ago and I somehow never used until now. The background is one of the half dozen or so "cloud" papers I currently own... I can never resist a paper with clouds or woodgrain!

Speaking of Stephanie, she is over on the SOS blog with the rest of my awesome teamies, and they've all made fabulous slimline cards to inspire you!

Thank You Very MUSH!

Winter Botanicals is the newest Paper Anthology Class in a Kit. This three-card class features soft colors, sweet doilies and plenty of woodgrain, with dies from Hero Arts, Spellbinders and Taylored Expressions plus sentiments from Wendy Vecchi’s “Merci and More” Stamp, Die and Stencil set. Don’t need that many Thank You cards? Swap the pre-stamped flags for your own sentiments and send these for practically ANY occasion. All stamping and diecutting has been done for you, just follow the written instructions and consult the full-color photos to easily assemble two A2’s and one A6 card. ♥

Trick or Treat

There are few things more adorable, in my opinion, than tiny children dressed up for Halloween; unless it's tiny MONSTAS wearing Eyelet Outlet Brads as part of their disguise!

The Yeti, Dragon and Unicorn from Taylored Expressions' Mythical Grumplings stamp set are seemingly already at the top end of cuteness, but then I decided to give them (from left to right) a Witch Hat and Wand from the Wizard Set; a Men's Hat and Mustache; and Groucho Eye Glasses. A Pumpkin Brad and a Frog complete the scene, which turned into the world's fastest shaker card thanks to a set of nested oval dies and some EO Star and Pumpkin Sequins. 

Keeping You in Stitches

We're on day two of Creation Inspiration Weekend, and everyone is invited to join us for challenges galore on the Paper Anthology Facebook Page. Next up is "A Stitch in Time" which, as you may have guessed, involves one of my favorite go-to techniques: STITCHING! It can be hand-stitching, machine stitching, or even faux-stitching; although in this situation, stitched dies do not count. Otherwise, use a little or a lot, decorative or practical, plain or fancy, but get ready... and get thready!

I've added quite a bit of machine stitching (around the clouds and the edge of the panel) plus a little bit of zig zag hand stitching on the righthand side of the heart. But the stars of the show are Taylored Expressions' Mythical Grumplings, whom I've stamped, colored and fussycut in all their grouchy glory.

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!

Challenge #10: Hip to be Square

Welcome back to the big Paper Anthology 9th Anniversary festivities, I hope you've been hanging out on the Paper Anthology FaceBook page and following all of these cool challenges, there is some serious inspiration over there and there are raffle tickets awarded for however many you complete, with ten awesome prize packs to giveaway at the end! 

This is my last challenge for the weekend, and it's to embrace one of my favorite formats. I love square cards, they have such beautiful balance and they just always look good to me. Here's my square card, this one happens to be 6" square, which is probably my favorite size because there seems to be the best selection of envelopes:

For this card I was excited to be test-driving a brand new product at Paper Anthology: Picket Fence Studios Paper Glaze, which comes in sixteen beautiful colors AND can be mixed together to make even more. In this case I just used it straight out of the jar. I love how it retains it's bold color no matter what type of paper you use it on. I used a palette knife to spread Succulent Green through Taylored Expressions A New Leaf Stencil on glossy black cardstock, and also on white watercolor paper. In the second case, I also took a little bit of the Black Pansy, and spread it right on top of the green, so that it has a sort of feathery effect. However if you mix two colors together thoroughly (on say, a paper plate) you will get a consistent third color, which is handy!

After the glaze was completely dry, I trimmed around the white version of the design and adhered the cut out portion on top of the black one. I added Memory Box's Rose Sketch Flower Spray Die (cut from copper and purple shimmer paper) and finished off with some vintage lace trimming, stick-on pearls and Hero Arts Sequins.

Stampin' with the Sisterhood!

I am honored to have been named Queen of Snark for my Pink Halloween card at The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers; especially since the prize is being a guest designer on their new challenge, SoSS173: P is for Penguin! 

Here's my card:

I was slightly bummed out to realize I don't actually have a penguin stamp; but then I remembered I had Eyelet Outlet Penguin Brads! This also meant that I could use my current favorite stamp set, Mythical Grumplings from Taylored Expressions. I'm not gonna lie... I'm kind of obsessed with that Yeti! I built a wintery landscape using scraps of a bunch of white and blue snowy-looking patterned papers and finished off with a few EO Snowflake Brads.

I hope you'll join me and the Sisterhood for this super-fun challenge, which runs through November 27th! ♥

Cue Elvis!

Have you been joining the fun of Paper Anthology's 9th Anniversary Party on the Paper Anthology FaceBook page? We've been having a lot of fun and we love that our friends from all over the world are able to play too!

There have been some AWESOME cardmaking challenges revealed so far, now here is my latest, it's called Blue Christmas. Did you already guess that the brief is to create a holiday card which is predominantly blue? If so, you're ready to roll! Here's what I made:

I started with a base of blue chippy-peely woodgrain patterned paper from Craft Consortium's 6x6 Wood Texture Paper Pad, added a fussy-cut snow globe and a couple of pine cones from Ciao Bella's Northern Lights Paper Collection, and embellished with glittery blue foliage using Penny Black's Juniper, Holly Branches and Bountiful Berries dies. I stamped one of the sentiments from Taylored Expressions' Flip the Snowflake set onto Lawn Fawn Pearlescent Vellum, added a Eyelet Outlet Cardinal and Pinecone Brads and called it a day.

I hope you'll join us at Paper Anthology's 9th Anniversary Party, the fun continues through Sunday night! ♥

Boo to You

In this Interesting Year of 2020, Halloween is bound to be a bit different, so it seems like an especially great time to send cards and other greetings, doesn't it? Luckily Eyelet Outlet has plenty of brads to suit the season! I've made a trio of ATCs that can stand alone OR become the centerpieces of some fun cards.

EO Ghost Brads are so cute it's almost scary! Though these guys seem to have been frightened off by a pair of Mini Spider Brads?

Monster Brads, on the other hand, are not afraid of anything... except maybe missing out on their share of the sweets, like Candy Corn Brads! The Bat Brad in the corner is hoping they remember to brush and floss afterwards.

It's a banner day for the witch who lives in the last ATC, thanks to Taylored Expressions' Pennant Parade Cling and Clear set, also the source of the cute sentiments! She's parked her Witch Hat next to a Pumpkin Brad while she goes to fetch her Broom... or maybe her Vacuum??

I hope you'll be inspired to make some fun Halloween cards or ATCs to share with your friends and family. Check out all of the awesome Holiday Brads in the EO store!

A Very CASE-y Christmas

We've got an interesting twist this fortnight at Jingle Belles, we're saving you the trouble of inventing a brand new holiday card design, by asking you to CASE (Copy and Selectively Edit) a card of Stephanie's or mine; from any Jingle Belles post, at anytime between 2011 and now. So yeah... there's plenty to choose from, lol! I knew immediately that I wanted to make my own version of one of this YETI card by Stephanie, so "Yeti or Not" here it is:

yeti and sentiment stamps: taylored expressions, colored with tombow markers and prismacolor pencils; snowflake patterned paper and tree die: echo park; hills dies: mama elephant; white glitter paper: best creation; xmas light stickers: sticko; christmas sticker: tim holtz/idea-ology; ink: ranger archival; corner rounder: we r memory keepers; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, scor-tape by sookwang

My biggest obstacle was that I literally had NONE of the products Stephanie used in her card. But luckily I found Taylored Expressions' adorable "Mythical Grumplings" set at Paper Anthology, which gave me cute Yeti and most of the sentiment. I used a slightly larger tree die; but had a very similar set of stitched hills, plenty of white glitter paper, and even a pale green snowflake patterned paper! Since my Yeti stamps were not holiday-themed, I added some holiday lights stickers, but I think they're a pretty good fit. Et voila! 

Be sure to hop over and see which card Stephanie chose to CASE and start scrolling around Jingle Belles to choose your inspiration card!

Timely ATCs

Here's a very Lauren-y story: I saw Taylored Expressions' set of funny Covid19 digital sentiments and especially loved the one about jeans. Eyelet Outlet make a fab set of Jeans and Tee Shirt Brads, so I decided to make a fast card combining them. As it turns out, I have EVERY color of Tee Shirt Brad, but... (can you see where this is going?!) ...not even one pair of jeans left! Argh! As it turned out, I did have brads that worked with three of the other sentiments, so the day was saved!

Before I talk about the ATCs I'll just mention that the sentiments are a free download from the Taylored Expressions Website, you just have to make a (FREE!) account, sign in, add the Big Grumpy Covid19 Sentiments to your cart, and check out. You'll get an email with a link to the download; easy-peasy, not even a credit card required! They're in a pdf format, which you can then print out on the paper or cardstock of your choice. My first ATC uses the "Stay Home" sentiment, which I printed on white cardstock and just trimmed down to fit in the patterned paper frame. I added a Computer and Headphones at opposite corners, and made my 2.5 x 3.5" Artist Trading Card based from patterned paper in coordinating colors... one piece even has little houses on it!

The "Messy House" sentiment seemed perfect to pair with our Vacuum and Broom Brads. This time I only framed up the brads, and set them above the sentiment, which I had printed on clear ink jet labels and stuck to this fun ledger-print paper. Again I found a sweet pattern of little houses, this time as a background. 

 

I'm sort of excited about the third ATC, which uses the "Shampoo" sentiment, because I don't think I've ever before used the EO Brush and Hair Dryer Brads! But they really are just right for this. Again I put one at each corner, so that the sentiment takes center stage.

Thank you Taylored Expressions for the inspiration and the fun sentiments! And thank you Eyelet Outlet for literally having a brad for EVERY occasion!