Talkin' Turkey

Thanksgiving is on its way and here's a card that celebrates the season with lots of Eyelet Outlet Pumpkin Brads and Mini Leaf Brads, plus Sun and Cloud Brads set in a Cloud Washi Tape sky. Don't forget to save room for pie!

Shopping List:

Pumpkin Brads

Mini Leaf Brads

Sun and Cloud Brads

Cloud Washi Tape

All the embellishments and accents you need for Fall and Winter cardmaking can be found in the Eyelet Outlet Online Store!

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing a very Happy Thanksgiving to all who are celebrating tomorrow! This pretty wreath consists of several neutral shades of diecut cardstock, creating a grapevine-like base that can be embellished with all your favorite Eyelet Outlet autumnal brads. Yellow Paper Flowers are topped with Sunflower Brads, clustered with Colored Daisies, Butterflies and Leaf Brads.

♥♥♥

Happy Thanksgiving!

Give Thanks

It's a week before Thanksgiving, but there's still time to send out some quick, easy cards! This super-simple CAS design features Eyelet Outlet Leaf and Mini Leaf Brads layered over stenciled leaves in fall colors. The background and diecut sentiment are made from beautifully neutral Nature Washi Tape. Change up the sentiment and this design could be used for literally ANY autumnal occasion.

Speaking of stencils: Did you know that you can easily make your own custom stencils using ANY simple craft dies you love? In this case, I've taken the three sizes of leaves from the Essential Envelope Die Set in Wendy Vecchi's NOT Your Ordinary Card Collection from Spellbinders and blended my favorite fall shades of Wendy's Archival colors from Ranger through them before adding the Leaf Brads and a simple sentiment. Job done! I made my stencils from glossy cardstock which is pretty sturdy; but to make them last forever cut the shapes out of stencil plastic. Don't forget to leave a bit of distance around each shape so that you have room to blend without accidentally getting stray ink on other areas of your project.

 

Visit the Eyelet Outlet Store today for brads and tapes that'll work perfectly for EVERY season of your cardmaking year; and check out all of Wendy Vecchi's awesome designs from Spellbinders.

Give Thanks

On the day before the American Thanksgiving holiday, what could be more fitting than a simple card which sums up the day. The "THANKS" portion of the sentiment is diecut from beautiful extra-wide autumn Leaf Washi, studded with Leaf Brads, Mini Leaf Brads and the yellow flowers from our Colored Daisy set. The background is made of super-wide Wood Tape, framed with Brick Washi.

Wishing the happiest and healthiest of holidays to all who are celebrating!

Happy Turkey Day!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the US, so this seems like the perfect time for a card that sums up the holiday, in Eyelet Outlet Brad style. Chunky diecut letters make a nice home for a combination of Pumpkin Brads, a handsome Scarecrow, a Rake, lots of Mini Leaves, and Fall Stitched Flowers with their Mini Stitched Flower friends. 

Wishing the happiest of holidays to all those who are celebrating! Meanwhile, should you need a little retail therapy over this wonderful weekend for shopping, the Eyelet Outlet Online Store is open 24/7!

Wendy Vecchi Autumn Place Setting

Wendy Vecchi MAKE ART Stamps, Dies and Stencils come off the page and onto an autumn tablescape. I've used Wendy's "Thank You" and "Autumn Greetings" sets to create napkin rings, place cards and votive candle rings. Head over to the Ranger Blog's Project Page to see the step-by-step tutorial! 

Happy Turkey Day!

Whether you're celebrating or not, I hope that everyone 

who sees this will have a wonderful day! 

♥♥♥ 

'Twas the Day Before Thanksgiving

Here's a happy little card focusing on one of the most popular and iconic of our Thanksgiving Day pleasures: PIE! 

Obviously I couldn't resist this sweet little slice (or the gorgeous plaid pattern!) from Doodlebug's "Pumpkin Spice" collection when I saw it at Paper Anthology, especially since I knew it would pair well with my Eyelet Outlet Pumpkin and Rolling Pin Brads! To round out the design I also added a Leaf Brad, a Sunflower, a Heart and the Oven Glove from our Cooking Set.

Wishing you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Vibes

Preparations for Turkey Day are well underway at our house, with the merits of various types of dressing being hotly debated, and crucial decisions regarding veggie casseroles (green bean or broccoli??) still pending. So this seemed like a good time to get out some of my favorite autumnal EO Brads and make a card.

There's nothing particularly Thanksgiving-related about this fabulous super-wide Brick Washi, but it was my starting point for colors. I added clusters of Sunflower Brads, green Mini Stitched Flowers and red Heart Pearls around my sticker sentiment and finished things off nicely with a Pumpkin Brad.

And now back to the Big Question: pumpkin pie... or apple??!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wishing you the happiest of holidays: full of delicious food, great company and stress-free travel. In keeping with the Thanksgiving tradition of eating then shopping, make sure to keep an eye out for special sales at The Ink Pad's Greenwich Village shop from Friday through Tuesday so you can get your craft fix on! (& of course The Ink Pad Online is open all the time!)

Card by Lauren Bergold

Supplies used: Karin DecoBrush Metallic Pens, Pitt Artist Pens, Eyelet Outlet Brads 

and VersaFine Clair Inks; all available at The Ink Pad!

♥♥♥

Happy (Almost) Thanksgiving!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the US, so this seems like a good time for a couple of especially autumnal cards featuring Eyelet Outlet Leaf Brads and a few other goodies.

If you have Leaf Brads and a sentiment, you don't really need a whole lot more. In this case I've trimmed the sentiment down from a journal card, matted it with some wide Flower Washi Tape and  Skinny Glitter Tape and then set the leaves in a sort of cascade, as if they were falling from their trees. I added some Mini Leaf Brads as well, for more variety.

I fell in love with this pickup truck sticker partly because I figured it would mix really well with our Pumpkin Brads and I stand by that decision. Since my pumpkins are stored with my Halloween brads, I found a black Kitten at the same time and thought it would be a fun combination. I made a little scene for the truck using Brick Washi, punched grass, and a few Mini Leaf Brads on the ground... because there is not a patch of grass anywhere near where I live in New Jersey that doesn't have some leaves scattered around on it right now! Finally I added a sticker sentiment which had some leaves printed on it, but I decided that dimensional ones, in Leaf Brad form would be even better.

If you are celebrating tomorrow I wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving! If not, I hope you have an Especially Nice Thursday! ♥

So Thankful

As we in the United States prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday tomorrow, I'm feeling especially grateful for family, friends, health, creativity, and for the Eyelet Outlet team, who are truly some of the nicest and most talented folks you could ever hope to meet!

It was impossible to resist making just one more Thanksgiving card with my favorite autumnal supplies, so I didn't even try not to, lol. This time I applied that awesome watercolor-y Wide Pumpkin Washi to plain white cardstock, added a band of Skinny Orange Tape to the top and bottom, then diecut my letters. I used an orange brush marker to ink the edges just slightly, and popped the letters up on thin strips of foam tape to get a little more dimension.

For my focal accent I stacked a Pumpkin Brad on top of a diecut pumpkin and attached a tiny yellow Mini Stitched Flower Brad and a Mini Leaf. By letting some of the brads overlap each other, it makes for a more cohesive cluster, which perfectly fills the center of a large white Paper Flower. One of my favorite "flower tricks" is to snip apart a few medium-sized green paper flower petals to use as leaves, and I love how they finish off the design.

To trim out the orange gingham patterned paper, I added Clear Bling Strips on top, and a skinny (skinny!) border of Glitter Gold Tape, set off by my favorite retro finishing touch: a border made with scallop patterned deco scissors!

Wishing the happiest of Thanksgiving Days to all of my American friends and a particularly awesome Thursday to the rest of the world! ♥♥♥

Giving Thanks

I'm finding it hard to believe it's already November 1st! Fall is flying by, but there's still time to grab some fun Eyelet Outlet brads and tape to make your Thanksgiving cards extra-special! Here are some pretties I'm sharing on the EO Blog today:

My first card is quite pared down (well... for me, lol!) but I really wanted the Leaf Brads and Mini Leaf Brads to stand out. I stenciled a few vines, then scattered the leaves down the front of my card, as if they were falling from their trees.

To anchor my sticker sentiment, I wrapped a strip of Wide Brick Washi around the top of the card, then added a Mini Butterfly as a finishing touch.

For my second card, I was test-driving some beautiful AlteNew Plaid Cover Dies on their Birch and Cherry wood sheets, so the story became all about texture. I framed a strip of the gorgeous watercolor Wide Pumpkin Washi with a skinny border of Glitter Gold Tape and added Champagne Jewel Bling Strips at the top and bottom.

Layered Paper Flowers topped with a Pumpkin Brad clustered with a couple of Leaf Brads and accented with a tiny green Mini Leaf Brad complete the design.

I hope you are enjoying all the pleasures of Autumn, including the fun of making Fall cards!

unbe-LEAF-able!

this week's challenge at shopping our stash is called "give thanks" and you can choose to make a thank you card OR any project with a thanksgiving theme.

vintage paper painted with many autumnal shades of colorburst pigment powders, then diecut with timholtz/sizzix tattered foliage dies as well as some ancient provocraft/cuttlebug leaf dies; edges inked with prima's dark bark chalk ink and a small amount of various neutral shades of distress stickles were randomly applied with a small paintbrush; patterned paper: gold matte metallic cardstock from paper anthology, american crafts POW gold glitter cardstock, cosmo cricket lined paper, paper source birch bark textured giftwrap; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, gluedots, sewing machine 

this is much, MUCH more stash-centric than it looks, because all of those gorgeous diecut colorburst leaves were leftover from an autumnal make-and-take i devised for last november's anniversary party at paper anthology* and i just stumbled upon them while cleaning out for this year's garage sale. and sort of re-fell in love with them. because the combination of saturated color, vintage paper, and a tiny bit of sparkly just *always* looks good to me. the rest of the card is pretty simple, so the leaves can really be the star of the show. i've attached them quite loosely, to make it look like they just sort of drifted in, on the wind. a look i find much more appealing on a card than all over my yard, but you cannot argue with mother nature, lol.

since this week's theme on the simon says stamp wednesday challenge blog is "ANYTHING GOES" i am linking up with those fine folks! 

for more amazing and inspiring ideas the SOS gang is always a great go-to; why not hop over just now? 

*this year's paper anthology anniversary party (#6 if you're counting!) will be in november, and if you're in or around central new jersey you won't want to miss it! sign up for the newsletter today so that you'll be the first to hear about cool events! ♥

hand lettering round up

i haven't had a lot of time for free-style art... or blogging for that matter, lol. but i try to sneak a bit in here and there:

@letteringbymhel and @inkcitra are the hostesses 

of the #WinterLetteringChallenge on instagram, 

which is really fun and inspiring; i've been watching more 

than i've actually participated so far, but that's ok.

i love aaria baird's wreaths... 

and her videos really do make you feel like 

OF COURSE you can do that too! :)

@letteringbybeth did a little illustration of xmas lights 

that i just had to try for myself!

on two successive nights my entire handlettering output 

consisted of putting names on envelopes... 

but at least i got to try out a few more instagram-inspired 

lettering styles, like the knitted sweater and gradient letters!

finally, to show how long it's been since i did an IG update, here's a bit of lettering from *THANKSGIVING*!!!

i'm sure you're as consumed as i am with holiday prep, but i still hope this sunday finds you sneaking in a tiny bit of creative "me" time!!! ♥♥♥

Give Thanks

Next Thursday we'll celebrate Thanksgiving here in the United States. Some of the things for which I am particularly grateful for this year are good health, a happy family, and being part of a wonderful creative team on the Eyelet Outlet blog! Today's my day over there, and I'm sharing a seasonal card I had a lot of fun making, inspired by these gorgeous Eyelet Outlet Leaf Brads:

To create the background, I used my newest favorite technique, in which you apply drops of water to your paper, add a tiny bit of color to each one, (I've used some of the gorgeous new Rich Moroccan Color Burst shades, but regular watercolor paint or ink would also work) then *SMOOSH* the dots of color and let them appear as random splotches on your paper. For best results, you'll definitely want to use colors that look well if they blend together a bit; and using a clear sandwich bag or some deli paper is helpful if you'd like to see the shapes you're making as you smoosh the droplets. For a less blended effect, apply the colors one by one, letting them dry in between.

I chose my shades of Color Burst based on the gorgeous autumn shades of those fabulous Leaf Brads. I also painted a few small leaves diecut from vintage text paper and sheet music. To add even more texture to my card, I only applied adhesive to the centers of my diecut leaves, and I curled the loose edges so they'd look more like real leaves.

Since wet media often warps one's paper a bit, my favorite way to attach a watercolor panel is with my sewing machine. Finally I added my sentiment using a combination of stamps and some of the Vintage Music Chipboard Letters I sell in my Etsy Shop, Just Enough Stuff.

Something else for which I am thankful is the amazing community of artists I've met online! I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving, and hope you will spend the day surrounded by your friends and family! ♥