Gee Wiz!

Would this be a good time for a little bit of magic, in greeting card form? Cool, I thought so too. Luckily I had my Eyelet Outlet Wizard Set Brads ready to go!

The Wizard Set comes with wands, glasses and two different scarves. I've used the glasses and the mustard colored scarf above my computer generated sentiment, along with one of two styles of lightning from the Wizard Hat and Lightning Bolt Brads. The hat itself is towards the bottom of the card, clustered with the wand and a Sketched Owl Brad. My background is matted on Star Gold Tape with an accent of Copper Foil Tape embellished with Glitter Copper Tape.

For my second card, I used the Wizard Hat again, without the lightning; and a wand from the Wizard Set, which is conjuring up some "magic" that I've depicted with Clear Swirl Bling snipped apart and rebuilt into a shape that fit around my sentiment a bit better, augmented with a few silver Star Sequins. I've got two glittery mats this time, one of wider blue Glitter Star Tape and one of Glitter Silver Stars Tape.

I've made both sentiments into jpgs which you can right-click and save; they will also be on the Freebies Page of the EO Blog for you to come back for later.

I hope you'll be inspired to use your favorite Eyelet Outlet goodies to whip up a little magic for your family and friends! ♥

Let the Games Begin

It's the second week of July, so Canada Day and Independence Day are behind us, which means it's time to think about CHRISTMAS, right? Or, more precisely, "Christmas in July" which seems to have become A Thing with cardmakers in the last few years. So luckily it's the brief at Shopping Our Stash this fortnight!

journal card and grey paper: doodlebug design; red snowflake paper: lawn fawn; green plaid: authentique; pearl swirl, snowflake brads, red gems and two styles of tape: eyelet outlet; tab sticker: possibly crate paper; twine from my stash; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, scor-tape

Lots of older stash here: a Doodlebug journal card that I trimmed down; loads of little scraps; the last two pieces of an Eyelet Outlet Pearl Swirl and some Snowflake Brads; a tab sticker that Missus Noah bought to take on the Ark... all good stuff though, that I'm glad I saved! I knew how to arrange it all thanks to this week's Sketch Saturday (#617), which I unconsciously flipped (in two different ways?!) so it may not count, but they definitely inspired me, so I thank them!

Be sure to hop over and feast your eyes on all the inspirational DT goodness at SOS, then get a-making your own holiday masterpiece! ♥

Snail Mail Challenge!

It's a well-known scientific fact that getting actual mail, from another human, is one of the great joys of life. So this week I challenge everyone who's reading this to send out one piece of snail mail. It could be a birthday card to a family member, a note to a neighbor, a postcard to an old friend, whatever. And before you tell me you'd like to do it, but you have no idea what to say; let me assure you that, "Thinking of you" or "Hope your day is going ok" is plenty. Seriously, it can be as simple as that. I'm pretty sure Christine Herrin, the designer behind the awesome Everyday Explorers Co, totally agrees with me on this point, since she named the stamp set I used to make today's card, "Send More Snail Mail". Coincidentally, it's available at The Ink Pad; and featured on TIP Blog.

Another Week Flies Past...

...and it's time to celebrate Fourth of July already? Seriously, HOW did that happen?! Of course this also means that we are just a tiny smidge past the halfway point of ICAD's 61 glorious days. Here are this week's index cards:

day 27: cappuccino

i've always wanted to try drawing fancy coffee-top art and this seemed like the perfect occasion. i lightly sketched in pencil, added color with sepia, violet and prussian blue colorburst, then outlined with my faber-castell pitt artist pens.

day 28: off-prompt

test driving a new stencilgirl stencil called stepping stone #1 by maria mcguire. I used dry oxide inks in the background, then wet them and watercolored the design. then added lots of outlines and doodles.

day 29: citrus

combining the actual prompt of the day with mandala monday. this one is in citrus colors (WITHOUT any black outline... hard for me not to add that lol...) with some of my newer favorite pens from the ink pad. on a swedish library card that came from a swap with my IG friend, ellen.

day 30: souvenir

...or at least souvenir was my starting point; in the end, this became a sort of historical/travel themed collage... and i'm cool with that...

day 31: off-prompt

a somewhat vaguely nautical one-staple collage. with a manatee. and sequins.

(let's not analyse this too much lol...)

day 32: off-prompt

inspired by an amazing mosaic/wedge collage my friend cyndie reis made last week. mine uses the leftover papers that were sitting out from my manatee collage. the found text is from a spanish language childrens book and reads, "sometimes lightning jumps from a cloud to the earth".  

day 33: periwinkle

one of the few days i have done the prompt ON THE DAY; go, me! ok so, i started off with small funky periwinkles which promptly got overshadowed by large funky orange guys. it happens, lol; let's just go with it.

♥♥♥

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

to everyone who is celebrating!

(and Happy Weekend to everyone else!)

Stars and/or Stripes!

Just in time for Fourth of July weekend, we're celebrating Stars OR Stripes at Jingle Belles. By which we mean we'd like to see holiday cards which feature stars or stripes or both! I went with both, but my stars are pretty understated, see?

All of my papers are from 2018 or so, and came from my LSS, Paper Anthology in Kenvil, NJ. The sweet fussy-cut snowman and candycane striped paper are Authentique; the red-on-red star pattern and sentiment strip are Simple Stories; the dimensional holly came from Prima Marketing and the sheet music is from my stash of vintage goodies.

Hop over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's card and link up your own starry and or stripey masterpiece! ♥

What Can You *DO* with All of Those Small Stickers?

Because if you're anything like me, you fall in love with beautiful, artful, must-have stickers like these Ukiyo-E Japanese Scenes from The Ink Pad; then wonder how you'll use them to fill an entire A2 card. Well, there are a couple of ideas on TIP Blog today, I'd love for you to hop over and check them out!

The Crown (Eyelet Outlet Edition)

I can never resist a funny meme, especially if it's one for which I have the perfect Eyelet Outlet Brads. In this case our fabulously fancy and righteously regal Crown and Tiara Brads.

There are actually four styles of Crown and Tiara Brads in each package: two versions of the golden coronet (with both blue and red details); and the pink tiara with both silver filigree and glittery sparkles. On my first card I used one of the golden/blue variety, and placed it on the head of my Riley and Friends stamp, "Midge with Coffee"... although in this case, I cut away the coffee mug (sorry, Midge!) so she'd look more regal. I used one of our fabulous new wide washi varieties, Apothocary Bottles Tape to make a background with a bit of a nostalgic vibe.

As is often the case when I've seen a meme online, I made a digital sentiment; or rather, two versions of the sentiment, because I wanted both horizontal and vertical format. I used a free chunky font called Vexler Slip for my first card and AR Bonnie for the slightly more streamlined version on my second card. They're both right-clickable here in the post, and will also be available on the Freebies Page of the Eyelet Outlet Blog later this week.

For my second card I wanted to use the pink and silver filigree Tiara Brads, so I made a slightly "lighter" looking sentiment and chose another new tape with nice bright colors, in this case the delicious Macaron Washi.

There are a bunch more fabulous new tapes, located at the very beginning of the Washi Tape section; and there are a few amazing new brad styles getting ready to debut soon, so check the EO Blog often for all the updates!