Hyacinth Bouquet

My favorite papercrafting category is definitely cards, but sometimes it's nice to make something a bit more substantial, and this fun bouquet of hyacinths fits the bill. I'm using Rinea's 3-D Hyacinth Die Set and some of their beautiful foils from The Ink Pad.

For the flowers I chose a soft turquoise foil with a little bit of a pattern and cut two of the curling flower shape (it looks a bit like a hair comb) for each large flower and one for each small flower. The die that looks like a crown is the leafy section which rolls up around the base of each flower. I chose double sided foil that is boldly green on one side and gold on the other.

There are instructions for assembling the flowers on the package, or you can find excellent videos on Rinea's website as well as YouTube. For my large flowers, I followed the directions exactly, except that instead of removing the long wooden skewer I used to form the flowers, leaves and stems into their spirals, I used Nuvo Deluxe Adhesive to adhere my diecuts to the skewers, so they had an extra-sturdy construction. I also found that I preferred to cover my stems with green washi tape rather than foil; but try both ways and see which you prefer.

When my flowers were assembled I "planted" them in a small Mason jar with clear floral beads to hold them up, but these would also work well on top of a package or glued to a pretty gift bag; there are more creative ideas for using this die set on Rinea's website and social media, too!

Bling It On (Again!)

We're still celebrating sparkly stuff like beads, glitter, gems, jewels and pearls over at Jingle Belles and we'd love for you to join our bling-based fun. Here's what I made this week:

This beautiful Ciao Bella "Snow and the City" collection came from Paper Anthology the winter before last, but I still really love it... for both cardmaking AND staging! I did a bunch of distressing and layering and then added a metallic diecut sentiment, and a poinsettia adorned with some oversized Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Bling.

Be sure to head over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's beautiful card and then start planning what you'll link up!

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!

Collaged Houses with StencilGirl® Stencils

I'm thrilled to be a guest on the StencilGirl® Talk Blog today, upcycling some funky nested papier mache houses my mom found when cleaning out her attic. I used these StencilGirl® Stencil designs: 

(Santiago by Nathalie Kalbach, Crazy Quilts Bold and Beautiful by Andrew Borloz, Ornamental Petals Screen by Gwen Lafleur, Ferns 6 by Cecilia Swatton and Lemon Button Fern with Masks Mini by Rae Missigman; plus (not pictured) Lizzie Mayne's Herring Bone Brick and Michelle Ward's Marrakech Mix)

To adorn these houses: 

Which each had twenty (20!) planes/panels on which to work; resulting in a whole lot of stenciled parts that looked a bit like this: 

When everything was attached, it looked more like this:

But if you want to see the finished trio, you're going to have to hop over to the StencilGirl® Talk Blog today... it's worth the trip though, I promise! ♥

That's Good Advice, Actually

One of my favorite dog sayings is "Wag More, Bark Less" so when I saw our adorable new Eyelet Outlet Kennel Mix Brads, I knew exactly how I would use them!

I love lettering and fonts, so I tend to make quite a few cards that are basically glorified word art, lol; but they make people smile and are fun to create. I also have a hard time passing up a cute set of alphabet stickers, so that's what I've used here; but of course stamps or a computer generated sentiment would work equally well. When adding stamps or stickers one at a time, I highly recommend using a background with strong horizontal lines, like this text paper; it helps A LOT with positioning! In addition to a bowl, a dog house and three bones from the Kennel Mix, I've added four Paw Brads, a Long Dog (they're on clearance!) and a Heart Brad to fill in the space around the words.

As well as Kennel Mix and Long Dogs, we have two styles of Paw Brads and one style of Paw Tape, Dog Silhouette Brads, cute Dog Faces and lots of fun Dog Washi Tape, too! Check them out in the Eyelet Outlet Store!

Gnome Alone?

This fortnight at Shopping Our Stash the challenge is called, "GNOME Doubt About It" and if you've guessed we'd like to see gnomes, you're partially right; in fact ANY magical creature will qualify, so dragons, mermaids, yeti, fairies and leprechauns are all fair game. As would a unicorn, like I've got right here:

Before you ask: YES, I composed that entire, very long, sentiment by adding ancient Kelly Purkey and Doodlebug alphabet stickers one at a time, starting at the bottom and working backwards; and YES, I am crazy. Glad we got that out of the way, lol. But I genuinely do love stickers as much now as I did when I was ten, so while it was a longish job, I enjoyed it. You'll notice my background is lined paper, (it's real notebook paper, backed with cardstock) and that's not just a cute design statement; I would never even consider using so many letter stickers if I had to measure or worry about keeping them straight! The unicorn, sunshine and rainbow are all from Gina K. Designs' Unicorn Wishes stamp set, which seems to have gone out of print, but I still love it, so there. I've scattered a few Eyelet Outlet silver Star Sequins about to amp up the "magical" vibe; I've also used clear Stickles quite liberally throughout, but you can't tell from the photo.

Be sure to visit the mythical land we call SOS and see what the magical design team has created to inspire you, then join us!

Did She Say, "ICAD" Again?!

Yes, I did say, "ICAD" and just a reminder that those letters stand for Index Card a Day, a creativity jumpstart from Tammy Garcia of the Daisy Yellow Art Blog. It runs June 1st through July 31st, and the point is to do something creative, on an index card, each day. It needn't be a finished piece; you could stamp, doodle, collage, haiku, collect quotes, practice your handlettering or... try a little bit of everything. You need only index cards and a writing implement to participate in ICAD, but if you do a bit of prep, you might find it easier to stick with the daily art habit. To that end, and because I happen to love making little books, each May I decorate a pair of chipboard covers, put them on a ring, and add index cards in various styles and colors. This year my cover features a few of my favorite StencilGirl stencils: Blooming Violet, designed by my friend Linda Edkins Wyatt, as well as Vintage Typewriter Alphabet (Lower Case) and Butterfly Journeys by Carolyn Dube which I found at The Ink Pad.

I made a collage of vintage paper, added my stenciled motifs in various Distress Oxide Inks, and outlined with a fine-tipped black Pitt Artist Pen. I added mats of BC Glitter Tape, which is super-sparkly without shedding at all, I'm really impressed with it, and excited that it comes in both Silver and Gold. Just in case you have no interest in index cards or a daily art habit, let me just say that these ingredients can also be used to make quite a pretty card; the only thing I did differently was to add a little bit of hand-stitching and then cut out around the Blooming Violet and mount it on double-sided foam adhesive.

Need a little more info on ICAD? There are daily prompts and weekly themes, which you can find on the Daisy Yellow Blog and Gypsy999's Instagram feed; they're entirely optional, and you can pick and choose. The only "rule" of ICAD is that you really should work on cheap, flimsy index cards from the office supply store, rather than 3x5" pieces of fine art watercolor paper. The point is that using inexpensive, accessible, nearly disposable supplies will encourage you to try lots of different ideas and not worry about making something lasting and perfect. Because this is about process rather than outcome. I know, it can seem wasteful of both time and supplies to sit down and work, but then you don't end up with a beautiful finished item? But trust me, the ideas you generate and the techniques you try out with no expectations attached to them, are very different to the ones that are part of an agenda. Plus... it's a lot of fun, and we all need more of that.

This will be my tenth year participating, and I can truly say I enjoy it more each time. Last year, during lockdown, my family started connecting on Zoom for an hour or two each Friday afternoon to ICAD together, and I'm looking forward to spending this June and July the same way with my niece, nephew, sister, aunt and mom... signing on from four different homes in two states! If you're hesitating, may I suggest that you commit to ONE WEEK? If you find it enjoyable and useful, you can continue; if not... you'll have given it a fair try! If you decide to participate on Instagram, be sure to use the hashtag #dyicad2021 and check out what others are posting, because you'll definitely be inspired and you might even make some friends.