The Post With the Most

Don't get me wrong, I love technology, but there's something about finding an actual card or letter in the mailbox that makes the whole day brighter, don't you think? I love to send snail mail to my friends and family, especially cards! So I was pretty excited when I saw these Eyelet Outlet Mail Brads:

And I really love that each packet contains both mailboxes and envelopes!

Speaking of envelopes, I've become somewhat obsessed with making my own custom ones, that match my cards! And my favorite decoration for them is (of course) Washi Tape! 

In this case, I've used the same mixture of tapes on both my card and the matching envelope: Red White and Blue Striped Washi, Air Mail Washi, Skinny Heart Washi, Gold Script Tape and my favorite Hearts Tape. I've used them in straight lines on the card, to highlight the focal image with the Mail Brads on it; but placed them at a diagonal on the envelope, to add extra interest to the vintage dictionary paper. 

I've placed the Red White and Blue Striped Washi, around the edges of a pale blue cardstock panel on both the card and the address label, and trimmed it to slightly less than half its normal width... to mimic the look of old-time airmail envelopes. 

A few hand-cut hearts and a label-maker sentiment seemed to enhance the nostalgic mood, and instantly we're back to the 1970's, when this lovely old eight cent stamp could transport your kind thoughts across town or country!

I've used the current (rather fab!) layout (#464) from Sketch Saturday for my card design:

I'm also linking up with Brown Sugar Challenge Blog's current theme, "Washi Tape" (challenge #251):

And with Cute Card Thursday, whose current brief is, "Brads"!

Meanwhile my lovely Wednesday partner, Carri, has something wonderful to show you, so I hope you'll scroll down and see that when you're over at the Eyelet Outlet Blog! ♥

it's the most wonderful time of the year!

by which i mean, the index card a day project* will start up again in just nine days, woohoo! you may be wondering what this has to do with this week's challenge at shopping our stash, and technically the answer is, "NOTHING" except that this week we'd like to see music notes on your project and i've used sheet music as the background for the covers of my ICAD2017 book. see?

sheet music from an old marked up book i found at a garage sale; my photo with heavily increased saturation and color levels, printed on kodak premium glossy paper; mica flakes from an art store; deco tape: love my tapes; chipboard thickers: american crafts; ink: stewart superior; bookring: staples; adhesive fabric sheets: michaels; chipboard: paper accents; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, scotch 3m craft gluestick, sewing machine  

ok, so apart from the sheet music, i have a heavily photoshopped picture i took at the new york botanical gardens a couple of years ago, which i've printed on glossy paper, trimmed into an oval shape, and added some shiny mica flakes. to grunge up the background a little bit, i added some clear plastic deco tape with text on it, a tiny bit of crackle modeling paste through a stencil, and some chipboard alphas with machine stitching to insure they won't decide to jump ship midway through the project. 

the endpapers inside the book are made from an adhesive fabric sheet i found in the iron-on section of a local big box crafting store. i was sort of excited to see them there, as we had been talking about adhesive fabric at SOS last week, during our "project runway" challenge! i always loved the stuff, so i was excited to see it making a comeback.

technically you don't need ANYTHING special to participate in ICAD, apart from index cards and a writing implement; and you most definitely do not need a special book. but i happen to like making little books, and something i have learned about myself over the years is that i can intend to keep a travel journal during vacation, or to watercolor every day in the autumn, or to make 61 index cards at the beginning of summer. but i'm a lot more likely to actually DO IT if i've already spent a bit of time and energy to make an official book with the title on it in chipboard letters, lol. and since i'm always excited about ICAD several weeks before it starts, i usually whip up a little something just to increase my odds of following through. some folks gesso their cards, or do collaged or painted backgrounds in advance to get them started, but i've found (perhaps a bit strangely?) that doesn't actually help me, so i just punch holes in a few different styles of index card and call myself "ready" lol.

on the other hand, you don't have to have any interest at all in ICAD to play along with us at SOS this week, and my dt darlings have loads of music note inspiration for you!!! ♥

*the founder and hostess of ICAD, tammy garcia, has an awesome website called daisy yellow art where you can read all about this event, but essentially: you get yourself a stack of 61 index cards; you do something creative (draw, write, paint, sew, collage, compose a haiku... whatever feels creative to you!) each day between june 1st and july 31st on one of the index cards; at the end of the project you have a stack of creative cards and have established, re-established or just re-ignited a daily art practice! it's fun, it's friendly and it helps boost both your creativity and your skills! this will be my 6th year and i have to say i love it more each time! ♥

minibook monday?!

if we are friends on facebook, you probably know that i generally like to start the week with "mandala monday". but having enjoyed a rather awesome art camp with the lovely linda brun last week, i have a few little books to post, so i'm gonna change things up! :)

linda discovered a fab place in nyc called "printed matter", which we thought was going to be a store full of art books, but it turned out to be EVEN COOLER than that!

it was not just full of art books, but full of artist books! some were traditional publications from small presses, some were self-published zines and some were limited edition, handmade treasures.

you may have already guessed that it was the latter category which i loved most, and could not wait to get home to try my hand at making!

this one has a new york theme, and was inspired by the work of misaki kawai, who incorporates a travel theme into many of her books, and does some really interesting folded pages.

it has a traditional stitched binding, though, being a bit lazy, i only made ONE signature and a folded cover, so it's a bit overstuffed. or rather, A LOT overstuffed. in fact, that crinkly seambinding tie is not just decorative... it's the only way the book stays closed, lol!

i am still clearly in a torn-and-layered paper phase, and i love the way the different sized and shaped pages have a collage-like effect, as they lay under, over, in front of, or behind the other pages.

the pages are a pretty random mix of vintage paper, gelliprints, colorburst experiments, photos, maps, train schedules, chopstick wrappers (!); i guess you could say there's a little bit of everything.

everything, that is... EXCEPT... a traditional narrative of any kind. which i suppose is something we generally expect to find in a book, lol. in fact, there aren't any words except the "found" ones in the various bits of text paper. i might add some later... or not... i suppose this is project is somewhere between a travel book and a collage? it's definitely a bit non-traditional, but i had a lot of fun making it, and i smile every time i see it. 

i'd love to stay and chat more, but i still have LOADS MORE book ideas that i can't wait to try out, so i will wish you the BEST MONDAY EVER and sign off for now, darlings! ♥♥♥

once in a BLUE moon...

...we have the "blue christmas" challenge at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ ok, technically, it's once a year, but that doesn't make for a very interesting blog post title now does it? anyway, we're into week two of the current one, so we're still rockin' the cards that are predominantly blue. i've gone a bit vintage this time:

cyanotype illustrations from a vintage ideals magazine; glossy white cardstock: paper accents; florals: petaloo, prima, michaels and some tiny blue ones of unknown origin; ink: colorbox; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape

the snowy scene is from a vintage christmas "ideals" magazine. i love that every issue i've ever seen has at least a few pages that are just shades of blue, a few that are just green or red or sepia; it's like a colorful version of greyscale! i've used a blue one here, as you can see. the lamp post was part of the same scene but was on the other side of a bit of a poem or text of some kind that i didn't want to include, so i fussy cut it, intending to fit it within my "tall card" shape. but i hated to cover too much of the house up, so i wound up letting it dangle off the edge, lol. it's a bit of an oddly-shaped, oversized card, that will need to go in with a package instead of being mailed in an envelope, me thinks! ;)

this week's theme on the simon says stamp monday challenge blog is home sweet home. i'm hoping that "home for christmas" counts??!

stephanie has made a rather lovely card that can be mailed quite sensibly. you really should hop over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and see it, darlings!

Ahoy, Summer!

Can you believe it's the middle of May already? I  find it hard to imagine we're only a couple of weeks away from Memorial Day! I was feeling Nautical-but-Nice (lol!) and decided to make a card which celebrates that fact, it's on the Eyelet Outlet Blog today. There are some awesome patriotic products in the Eyelet Outlet store and here are a few of my favorites:

It's no secret that I'm a bit of a Washi Tape enthusiast (I don't think it counts as "hoarding" if you USE them, right?!) and one of my favorite tricks for making a bold sentiment is to combine a few coordinating tapes, the diecut or hand cut my title from the resulting decorative border. In this case I'm rockin' the Red, White and Blue Stripe with Nautical Tape and Skinny Stars tape, though I confess I had difficulty choosing when I also had Blue Stars, Cruise Tape and Hearts; I've traced some oversized chipboard letters to form the word "Ahoy" and then mounted them on foam tape on my card so they'd stand out even more.

A bold red panel on a field of white makes everything pop, don't you think? And how adorable are those Red White and Blue Anchor Brads?! I'm definitely ready to sail off into summer now, and I hope you are, too!

I hope you'll stop by the Eyelet Outlet Blog today; and when you're there, I hope you'll scroll down to the post below and see what my lovely and amazing Wednesday partner, Miss Carri, has to inspire you even more! ♥

putting the FAB in fabric

this week's challenge at shopping our stash is called "project runway" and we want you to tap into your stash of fabric, whether that be in the form of fabric swatches, burlap or canvas embellies, fabric paper, fabric tape... if it's fabric, it's fair game! i have a bunch of cool fabric tape, actually, that often gets overlooked in my passion for the sheer variety of washi, so i made a point of combining them together this time!

architectural drawing, paint chip and notebook paper from my stash; fabric tape: freckled fawn, love my tapes and little b; washi tape: eyelet outlet, doodlebug, freckled fawn, little b, october afternoon; alphabet stamps: tim holtz/stampers anonymous; ink: ranger archival; bookring: staples; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, staples

if this rainbow swatch book looks familiar, it may be because i posted a similar volume a couple of weeks ago, when i announced my may and june classes at paper anthology. i made a very similar book as a sample for the class and dropped it off at the store, but quickly realized that i needed an actual working copy to keep for myself and use as a record all of my inks, paints and markers! so this one will be the "keeper" and i've already started adding the colors i own.

i divided the book into sections, and i've scribbled swatches of my gelatos, pens and markers, but i've stamped all the inks, as you can see in the photo below. i've tried to keep like colors together, so it makes it easy to determine just WHICH SPECIFIC green distress ink i'd like to use for any particular project:

there are loads more awesome crafty uses for fabric on display at SOS, courtesy of my amazing design team darlings! do give yourself a treat and hop over to see them! ♥

blue christmas?!

this fortnight's prompt at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ is called "blue christmas" but it's hard to see who could be sad if they got to play with indigo and ultramarine colorburst, then diecut snowflakes from the result, and layer them on top of old skool basic grey patterned paper, torn vintage book pages and doilies, isn't it? as a matter of fact, i had a ball with all of the above!

apparently, i'm still in a bit of a "torn paper" phase, but i keep on liking how it looks, so i'm not even going to waste time worrying about that. a little bit of ink, some wonky stitching, and those biiiiiiiiiiig honkin' rhinestones and i was ready to call this one DONE!

i was inspired by mojo monday #496, but since i wound up putting the strips ON TOP of the panel, i'm not sure i haven't veered too far from the sketch at this point. i am very grateful for the inspiration, however!

miss stephanie has a gorgeous card to show you, why not banish the blues with us at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥?!