Masculine Merriment (Week 2)

It's the second week of making "Guy Cards" at Jingle Belles, by which we mean holiday cards with a masculine vibe. Here's mine:

This card is 99% composed of gorgeous vintage-themed elements from Tim Holtz's Idea-ology Christmas Emporium Layers, a curated collection of elements that I snagged on the Ranger website. I've added in a few paper scraps, some twine, and woodgrain background. I distressed the edges of literally every single piece, which might arguably be considered "too much" but it was quite relaxing and soothing to do, so there's that. 

JB2617 Masculine Merriment runs until the evening of next Wednesday, August 26th. Link your newly made, holiday "guy cards" on the Masculine Merriment post at Jingle Belles.

JB2513: Festive Frames

Over at Jingle Belles we're still making cards that incorporate at least one frame as part of the design. This week my fancy frame dies helped me to rescue a beautiful-but-damaged vintage postcard!

A few years ago I purchased a set of holiday postcards that were not in good condition, but since I wanted to use them on Christmas cards, that was fine with me. This one was the most battered of the lot:  it had several very large creases and was entirely missing its lower righthand corner. But luckily, by finding two frame dies of just the right size, I was able to select the nicest bits, frame them up, and showcase them in a collage of Tim Holtz/Idea-ology Pocket Cards, 7 Gypsies velvet holly leaves and assorted festive washi tape in coordinating colors.

Be sure to check out Stephanie's card at Jingle Belles, where you will also find all the info you need to link up your own Framed masterpieces! This challenge runs until next Wednesday evening, July 2nd.

A Very HEART-y Mandala Monday

Practicing shading with my Tim Holtz Distress Watercolor Pencils from Ranger. I love that if you start out fairly dark at the edges and pull the color inwards, this method basically does both shading and outlining for you! I was debating what additional details to add when I spotted half a jar of pink sequins on my worktable; I dumped a few onto the page with the intention of arranging them neatly around the edge, but then I thought, "Nope, I like them scattered" so I just grabbed the adhesive and stuck them on. This mandala created in my Dina Wakley Media Blue Journal which has denim and burlap pages as well as the sturdiest and most wonderful DWM Heavyweight Watercolor Paper, which is truly luxurious to work upon.

Stuck on Stickers

We're still celebrating stickers at Jingle Belles, a pursuit I could happily do every single week, since stickers have been one of my favorite things to collect (and craft with!) since childhood.

This time I've got some beautiful small stickers based on vintage postcards, which came from an older Tim Holtz/Idea-ology Sticker Book, as well as a nearly new Photoplay sticker sentiment, and some puffy holly-shaped Thickers. All of these are layered on top of Prima graphed patterned paper, some torn sheet music, and strip of White Lace Tape, as well as a few solid mats that pick up various colors in the design.

Our "Stuck on You" sticker challenge runs at Jingle Belles through next Wednesday evening, February 8th, so you have plenty of time to join the fun. First, though, head on over to see what Stephanie has made this week!

Skating Away

We're still celebrating Winter Fun at Jingle Belles and you're still invited to join us! This week I was sorting through my holiday dies, and as soon as I came to these gorgeous Tim Holtz Ice Skates from Sizzix I knew exactly what I wanted to make. I spend a little too much time at the chiropractor to be an avid ice skater at this point in my life, but as a kid and teen I did enjoy skating. I definitely never owned a pair of purple paisley skates, but the great thing about cardmaking is that you're only limited by your imagination and your paper stash, and in my case, BOTH are considerable!

The purple paisley paper and both background layers are from Blue Fern Studio's "Eclectic Charm" collection, which I absolutely adored a year or two ago. The silver metallic cardstock on the skate blades and as a super-skinny mat between layers of pattern is Idea-ology; and the Evergreen Branches are Tim Holtz's Holiday Greens Thinlits in both regular and mini size. The sparkly Gold Enamel Stars are from Eyelet Outlet and the skate laces are DMC floss #3834.

Head over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's inspiring card, then start thinking about how you'd portray some "Winter Fun" in card form!

"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!

Snow Far, Snow Good

At Jingle Belles, we're still making cards based on this beautiful inspiration photo from Missy's Sugar Shop and you're still invited to join in!

This week I've used the snowglobes as my inspiration; along with a little nod to some of the colors, especially the purple sky and background, which I truly would never have thought to use, otherwise! But I swapped out the cute factor in favor of something a bit more sophisticated, featuring Tim Holtz's Snow Globe #2 Thinlits Dies. I only use this set a couple of times per year, because this card has literally FIFTY tiny diecut pieces, which is not the recipe for a fast make, lol. Having said that, it's hard to argue with the results, and once you've assembled all the bits, you don't need anything else on your 6" square card!

Be sure to make the trip over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's beautiful card and check out the readers' gallery, before linking up your own photo-inspired masterpiece!

Deckled Rainbows

Whenever I'm not sure what color to choose, I go with my all-time favorite... RAINBOW! In this case, I got a headstart from The Papercut's Poptone Variety Slimline Card Assortment, which has twenty-eight perfectly scored slimline cards in fourteen gorgeous colors; and used Tim Holtz's Deckle Torn Edge Trimmer from Tonic to make my own geometric rainbow patterns. Read all about it on The Ink Pad Blog.

Prize Ribbon *IS* a Winner!

Of course any new Ranger Distress color is a cause for celebration, but the newest shade, Prize Ribbon, is a deep, vibrant blue that blends exceptionally well with many other colors from the line. When I get a new Distress Oxide, the first thing I do is make a bunch of ATC-sized panels and experiment with lots of different blends. I highly recommend this sort of experimental play for devising interesting pairings. Be sure to make note of the colors on the back of your ATCs as you work, so you can easily recreate your faves! Hop over to The Ink Pad Blog to see the first card I made with Prize Ribbon!

Deckle-Edge Paper Weaving

Tim Holtz's Deckle Torn Edge Trimmer has sold out every time we've had it in stock at The Ink Pad, so of course I had to try one for myself. In the course of using it to make larger cuts, I became fascinated by the narrow deckle-edged off-cut strips, which I thought would be very cool woven together! You can read more about this technique on The Ink Pad Blog.

Hi! (x2)

I love alphabet stamps and stencils, and I especially love when they line up with the "H" and the "I" next to each other; so you can feature them together, or "HI-light" them, so to speak. Such is the case with Tim Holtz's Mini Layering Stencil Set #29, which I've paired with Papergame Boy Stickers in a couple of fun cards which are on The Ink Pad Blog today.

More Stickers, Please!

I love stickers, generally and Appree Pressed Flower Stickers, particularly. These lovely photo-realistic stickers add the beauty of pressed flowers to any project, without the challenging fragility of the real thing. We've just added about two dozen NEW flower styles to our selection at The Ink Pad and of course I had to have some immediately! This shabby chic Traveler's Notebook page is one of two Appree projects on The Ink Pad Blog today, I hope you'll hop over and see the other one!

SOS443: Plant Life

We're celebrating all things leafy at Shopping Our Stash this fortnight, so break out your stamps, dies, stickers or stencils, and get ready to have fun with foliage!

I've got loads of serious stash usage on this baby, starting with a collagey background of found and vintage papers, topped with various green oxide inks through three of my oldest foliage stencils... the left and middle sprigs are both Wendy Vecchi; the fern towards the right is TCW. Then I broke out my neglected Tim Holtz Wildflowers 2 Thinlits dies, which I used on offcuts of watercolor paper and colored with Tombows. Then I had a small problem, when my wildflowers matched my background so well that you actually could not see them. So I cut another layer of the same three flower styles from a darkish grey/green cardstock that I used as a sort of "drop shadow" behind my colorful flowers. I added some TH/Idea-Ology "Clippings" stickers as a very loose sentiment, inked the edges of the whole panel and affixed a few absolutely ancient Studio Calico woodgrain butterfly stickers. Job done!

Be sure to check out the amazing projects from my design team sisters over at SOS before linking up your own unbe-LEAF-able masterpiece!

An Ambi... what?

I confess that I hadn't heard the term "ambivert" (which describes a person who has a mix of both introvert and extrovert personality features) until I found Everyday Explorers Co "Ambivert Life" stamp set and thought, "Hey, that's ME!" Hop over to The Ink Pad Blog to see the flip side of this fun card AND a Traveler's Notebook page I made using the same set!

Stencil Sunday ♥

I've always loved vintage and shabby chic style cards, but I've just discovered how to make them even more appealing, by adding Tim Holtz Baseboard Dolls. I've named this one Beatrice, and she is the star of today's post on The Ink Pad Blog! 

Stencil Sunday: Cozy Campfire Edition

Here's a shocking true confession: When Tim Holtz announced the newest Distress Color, Crackling Campfire, I was not entirely convinced. Did we really need another orangey-red? Wouldn't it be too close to either Barn Door or Ripe Persimmon? And then the ink in question arrived at The Ink Pad and of course I was entirely smitten. The moral of this story? Trust Tim!!! More about the color, the card and the palette on The Ink Pad Blog today.

Playing the Accordion

 ...or at least, playing around with the idea of accordion-folded minibooks. The Ink Pad had the very great pleasure to participate in the Collins Virtual Show last week, and we were blown away by all the classes, teachers, ideas and new products! We'll have lots of the latter coming soon to the store, so stay tuned for sneak peeks! In the meantime, many of the ideas we saw inspired us to use our existing inventory in new and interesting ways. For example, Pinkfresh Studios hosted a class in which we made adorable mini albums just by scoring and folding a page of journaling cards! Genius, right? Well, what if we translated that idea and used hand-stamped and collaged paper, to make a project that's more than a card, but less than an album? Read all about it on The Ink Pad Blog!

Pressed Flowers?

New to The Ink Pad: Sixteen varieties of Appree Pressed Flower Stickers, which look exactly like dried flowers, without any of the mess. Perfect for journals, planners, scrapbooks or... as you'll see today on The Ink Pad Blog... cards!

Layered Patchwork Stencils

I had a lot of fun playing with a pair of Tim Holtz Patchwork Stencils from Idea-Ology, and appropriately enough, I used a bunch of Tim's beautiful Distress Oxide Inks. Coincidentally, all of these supplies are available at The Ink Pad and all the details are on TIP Blog today!

Thank You, Mr. Holtz!

Have you been watching Tim Holtz's series of FaceBook Live Demos? If not, I recommend cruising through the archive, because arguably no one in the craft industry has introduced us to more specialty products; and for sure no one uses the TH products better than the man himself! Last Saturday (6.20) was the first half of a feature on Alcohol Inks, in which Tim reviewed all of the "basics" including the different varieties of ink and the other products which work with them; this Saturday (6.27) will be more focused on techniques. Not only did I learn some really cool things in the "Basics" episode, I was super-inspired to get out my AIs and accessories and use them to make a bunch of backgrounds plus a couple of fun cards! More details and links to all the products I used on The Ink Pad Blog today!