SOS256: let me take a selfie!

before you get too worried, NO, you don't have to use an actual photo of yourself to qualify for this week's challenge at shopping our stash, we actually want to see projects that feature a "faux polaroid" scene. here's what i made:

statue of liberty pic taken from a very old, outdated guidebook to new york; patterned paper: blue fern studios, amy tangerine; white kromekote card stock: the paper cut; eyelet outlet washi tape: cloud tape, nyc tape, road tape; felt thickers: american crafts; puffy heart sticker of unknown origin; ink: colorbox; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape

ok, so, what if you don't have any of the gazzillion stamps, papers, or embellies which feature a polaroid theme? don't panic, they're actually the easiest thing in the world to fake... just combine your elements into a square shape, then mount the square on a piece of white cardstock. trim three sides to an equal border, but make the bottom edge approximately twice as thick, et voila! you've made your first "faux po"! (but not... i predict... your last, 'cause these are fun!)

need more inspiration? i've made a few of these including last week's eyelet outlet "summer love" card, this cuuuuuute little deer, this (gah, pink!) monsta xmas card, and this pun-tastic anniversary. need some vaguely *sensible* ideas? the SOS dt have a whole bunch of gorgeousness to help you out! check it, asap, darlings! ♥

icad: week 2 (the saga continues)

what's that? you wish there were more blog posts full of index card art? well, by golly, i'm here for you! here's what's been happening in my personal version of the index card a day project:

card 5: clouds

the first thing that occurred to me is that A) clouds are fun to paint and B) i'm not the first one to think so. i can never see painted clouds without thinking of billy collin's poem "student of clouds" which is (loosely) about the 18thC english painter, john constable. i typed the first stanza of the poem on a separate index card, so it could live in my ICAD book with the clouds.

card 6: top ten

i thought this one was a "gimmee" b/c i immediately knew i wanted to do favorite books and i knew they'd be fun to paint and decorate. what i hadn't reckoned on is HOW HARD it'd be to only choose *10* and how resentful the other books would be upon discovering they were left out. i'm pretty sure middlemarch was glaring at me this morning, and if all of dickens' works ever organize themselves and work together, i'm toast.

card 7: off prompt

luckily i had used up the leftover colorburst from card 6 to add some swooshy, vaguely flower-shaped swirls to a second card, because this was the day i met up with my crafty bff stephanie in new york city, and by the time we got back to the hotel that evening, all i had energy for was a little outlining and shading.

card 8: island

for this day we were still in manhattan, which, is of course, AN ISLAND, so it was sort of a no-brainer. also, we'd been to the ink pad where i treated myself to a new michelle ward stencil which is an ink pad exclusive, so again, the choice was pretty simple.

card 9: compass

inspired by the cool buildings in the stencil above, i made a sort of mandala/compass thingie...

card 10: cobalt blue

by this time, we were back at my house and deeply immersed in a sort of mini art camp event that was ALL ABOUT monoprinting with gelli plates, so OF COURSE i had to use a bit of one for my card and another one as a backdrop!

(yes, i'll be blogging about this more thoroughly in future, meanwhile, there are a few pics on my fb page) 

card 11: baseball

ordinarily, this would've been my cue to go immediately waaaaaaaaay OFF PROMPT, but luckily stephanie suggested a mandala built around a baseball diamond, and once i got going i had a lot of fun with the idea!

(being born and raised in the philadelphia area, OF COURSE i had to go with phillies colors and logo... i may dislike baseball, but i'm a big fan of geographical loyalties, lol)

in case you're thinking to yourself, "gee, this whole ICAD lark does look kind of fun!" let me say that it's not too late to participate this year, and you don't need to catch up... just START and see where it takes you... ♥♥♥ 

frosty's baby pictures :)

we're still celebrating snow in all its forms at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥: snowmen, snowflakes, snowfall, snowscape, snowstorm, snowcones... (ok that last one is a little shaky, but i'm hungry, lol) ...if it's snow-related and you can put it on a card, by golly, we want to SEE IT! here's what i made:

tim holtz snowflake e/f embossed on hobby lobby kraft cardstock and sponged with liquitex gesso; showflake stickers: basic grey; snowflake rhinestone embellie: want2scrap; extra gems: recollections; border stickers: pink paislee; patterned paper: autumn leaves; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, sewing machine

yepper, i've gone with snowflakes again. what can i say, i had another cool idea (well, i thought so, anyway) i wanted to try out: what if i embossed snowflakes on kraft cardstock and then sponged them with a little gesso? yep, that worked pretty well, made a nice soft effect. i added some embellies and then matted and stitched and called it a (snow)day!

stephanie has also made a lovely card to inspire you, why not check it out right now?! ♥

summer ♥love♥

hi guys, it's my day on the eyelet outlet blog again, and i'm in full-on summer crafting mode! when i was a kid, the big treat in the summer was to go "down the shore"... which is new jersey speak for a trip to the beach, no matter what geographical direction you headed to get there. i still love the sand, the surf, the sunshine, and heck, even the seagulls*! luckily, eyelet outlet has brads that satisfy all of my summery needs.

i've used Tall Palm Tree Brads, Eye Glass Brads (backed with a scrap of charcoal paper to make them sunglasses), Spring Bubble Brads, Seagull Brads, Sun and Cloud Brads, and a single Heart Brad to capture everything i loved --and still love-- about those days!

these days i spend more of my summer in the garden than at the beach, but that is equally fun!

i don't grow roses, but i might, if they were as lovely as this vintage applique, and attracted wildlife as beautiful as these Butterfly Brads. one of my favorite things about these guys is that they come twelve to a packet, in six colors; half of which face left and half of which face right! (a boon to my OCD lifestyle, lol!) i've also added a few strips of Glitter Washi Tape in Copper for a bit of glamour!

what's your favorite thing about summer and how could you use it as inspiration for your next card or project? check out the Eyelet Outlet Blog every day for a different designer's perspective, not to mention LOTS of amazing inspiration! ♥

*i'm not sure about the rest of the country, but in big shore towns like atlantic city, the seagulls are both smart and aggressive. (some say factions of them are also mafia-connected, but i believe that to be an exaggeration.) anyway, to illustrate the smart part, for example, they *know* which stores on the boardwalk sell french fries, and they will hover around outside, waiting for a customer to emerge from such a store with a big cone of fries, SWARM HIM** in an attempt to make him drop the fries; at which point it's lunchtime, baby!!!

**i SWEAR i am not makin' this up!!! (no srsly, this is absolutely true!)

SOS255: tea (or coffee!) for two

can you guess the theme of this week's challenge at shopping our stash? you can, right? yepper, it's coffee or tea! though i suppose you could also slip in hot chocolate or soup, for that matter... if it's served in a mug, a china cup, or one of those takeaway cardboard thingies with the sleeves that fall off and make you almost spill them, you're probably safe! i went with coffee b/c i just so happen to have a lovely blogging friend (becca cruger, the damsel of distressed cards!) who designed a coffee-themed stamp set for stamplorations which i absolutely ♥LOVE♥ and don't use nearly often enough!

literary caffeine-ations stamp set by becca cruger for stamplorations; mug pattern paper pieced from a piece of free clipart; patterned papers: amy tangerine, glitz design, basic grey; label sticker: papaya art; floral: prima; brad: my mind's eye; pearly  swirl thingies (cut apart and re-arranged to fit on the mug): recollections; doily from my stash; inks: ranger archival for stamping and colorbox chalk ink for edging; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, sewing machine

obviously i wanted the sentiment to be really prominent, but you need a mug or a cup or a SOMETHING to reinforce the theme, am i right? which i didn't have. so i did what i usually do, which is print out a piece of clipart and paper-piece it. here's a little glimpse at my "gettin' ready to make a card" jumble, which i'm showing you because the clipart mug is in it AND because it illustrates the problems i thought i had with my papaya sticker: a) it had an extraneous (for my purposes) lady on and b) the open part of the sticker was on the wrong side. as it turns out, i solved both of those by covering the lady with the mug and stamping on the left where i wanted to stamp. go, me! :) 

in terms of placement, i used this week's sketch saturday sketch (#415) though admittedly it's rotated and kind of loose, but i think/hope you can see it?

there's loads more caffeinated wisdom and inspiration from my lovely SOS darlings, o'course... why not replenish your beverage and hop over to peruse that awesomeness right now?!

i came, i saw, ICAD! ♥

yes, it's that time of year, the time of infinite possibilities, artsy essperiments, and the headlong pursuit of crazy ideas! ok yes, i know, i do most of those things ALL THE TIME, but now it's early june and i'm immersed in the index card a day project, at the daisy yellow art blog, for my fifth year! wahey! let the tiny, funky, art-ification begin! (this year i'm going to be reposting the square format instagram pics i post daily from my phone, rather than re-taking rectangular pics b/c i just don't have time to do that job twice!)

card 1: mixtape prompt

a sort of mission statement/forecast of what i might want to concentrate on this year, it also brought back many fond memories of the homemade tapes full of favorite songs which filled my teenage years!

card 2: pyramid prompt

i started out by wondering what kind of pyramid i should do: the egyptian kind, the one at the louvre, the pink floyd prism/rainbow thingie? and the answer was, "YES!" lol.

(the day after i finished this, my niece maddie** texted hers which was a hand drawn pyramid of OREOS! idea envy! idea envy!!!!!!)

card 3: off prompt

it was day 3 and i still hadn't drawn a mandala or done any hand lettering. which clearly was a big problem!!! :)

card 4: typewriter prompt

of course as soon as you say, "typewriter" i think, "rainbow"!!!

(ok, no, i have no idea how i got from one to the other, but i did and i like it so that's just how it is.)

need more ICAD info? here's the FAQ; here's the first week of prompts; here's the second week of prompts; here's the facebook group (it's a "private" group in order to keep spam and off-topic posts at bay, but if you ask to be included they'll say yes!) here's my fave instagram hashtag #icad2016. okey doke, i think that's about it, but if you have questions feel free to ask in the comments or email me via the link in my profile, i'll help if i can. a few quickies i can answer right off:

NO, you don't have to use the prompts at all, much less in order. 

NO, you don't have to do every day and OF COURSE you won't have "wrecked" it if you miss a day!!! 

NO, you don't need to be able to draw or paint or have "art experience"; you can make collages, print out photos, write haiku or poetry, doodle, stamp, color or... well, basically you can embark on any art form, any way you want to, any day! 

there's only one real "rule" of icad, and that is YES, you must use cheap, crappy index cards* like they sell in the grocery store or at the office supply store; NOT watercolor paper or bristol board cut to 3x5" because a huuuuuuuuuuge part of the point is that you're using something that's inexpensive and plentiful and trying to record ONE IDEA each day. these aren't supposed to be beautiful permanent pieces of art, they are more like kickstarts that reinforce a daily art practice! tammy garcia, founder of icad, has more to say about the ephemeral nature of these things in this post which i really like. the bottom line, though, as in any art pursuit: MAKE IT WORK FOR YOU, and you'll be much more likely to establish a fun and fulfilling habit, rather than being "stuck" in an overwhelming commitment! ♥♥♥

*they can be 3x5" or 4x6" or mini's; even rolodex cards are ok. don't like the lines? there are unlined and graphed ones. want something a little sturdier? use the oaktag divider thingies or the alphabet tabbed ones. wanna get funky? they make them in colors you know... just sayin'... ♥

**all four of my nieces are participating this year as time allows, and my mom has been chiming in, too. i'd LOVE to show them off, but there are multiple sets of parents with posting rules, and various comfort levels of sharing art, so we have a little direct-message group that's just for us. which... NO... it wasn't me who established it, it was one of the girls, and they're INTO it this year! i'm in heaven; i know that ppl talk about kids and technology and how it isolates them from "real life" and from family, but in my case i actually get MORE TIME to spend with them and we're making and talking about and thinking about and strategizing about ART... i think i'll just go knock wood and count my blessings and shut up right now, lol! ♥♥♥

yes, i promise to make a product-heavy card VERY SOON!

in the meantime, sorry if you're tired of my drawings and/or watercolor... clearly i'm "in a phase" lol! this particular card is for our brand new theme at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥, "frosty the snowman" for which we'd like to see (betcha can guess?) snow, in the form of snowmen (or women); or a snowy landscape; or even future snowpersons or landscapes... aka snowflakes. i went with the latter:

snowflakes drawn on strathmore watercolor paper with faber castell pitt pens in S and XS; watercolor background made with fuchsia, orchid and ultramarine color burst pigment powders; grey gems: eyelet outlet stickyback bling in three sizes; sakura metallic pens in silver, blue and pink; white and silver glitter + white organza ribbon: michaels; silver metallic paper from my stash; patterned paper: pink paislee; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, sewing machine

i honestly thought the center panel would be kind of equivalent to patterned paper and then i'd add chipboard snowflakes or silk flowers --or both-- on top... as it turned out i just super-embellished the flakes with gorgeous eyelet outlet bling, glitter and metallic pen doodles and then added a little ribbon and a silverpaper frame.

stephanie has also made a super-cool (ok, sorry, but it had to be said, lol!) snow-centric card to inspire you, why not hop over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and admire that right now?!