Magic Pencil Mandala Monday

A few years ago, my friend Paul bought me a Magic Pencil at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and it instantly transported me back to grade school art class and the joy of simple, colorful, fun supplies. Since then, Miss Stephanie has found several different versions, including the astonishing set of Koh-I-Noor Tri-Tones that you see in the photo. Amongst the many things that Magic Pencils are awesome for is drawing and doodling, because it really allows the "magic" of the random color distribution to shine. 

Magic pencil mandala, outlined in Pitt Artist Pen, 

in my Canson Mixed Media Sketchbook

"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!

Stitched Chippies? (YEP!)

Wendy Vecchi's MAKE ART Chippies are sturdy, pre-primed chipboard embellishments which can be inked, stamped and painted to uniquely enhance your papercrafting projects. They come in five varieties: Bases and Frames, Wreaths, Blossoms, Lots of Leaves and Beverages. Today I've got a fun tutorial on the Ranger Blog in which I've used embellies from the first two sets and added even more dimension and texture to them by hand-stitching on my Chippies, I hope you'll hop over and check it out!

It's a RAINBOW Brad Book

Last year I made an Alphabet Brad Book featuring as many Eyelet Outlet Brads as I could fit onto two dozen or so playing-card-sized ATCs. That project was so much fun I thought I'd do a different version: this time grouping the Brads --and a few coordinating EO Washi Tapes-- by color. So without further ado, I present my Eyelet Outlet Rainbow Brad Book!

The cover has a sticker title on top of Rainbow Washi decorated with a Rainbow Brad, a sweet blue Fairy and some white Enamel Stars. 

Eventually, I'll arrange the pages in spectrum order, but I've been working pretty randomly to choose coordinating brads, tapes and letter stickers, so at the moment, page one has all things ORANGE, including: a Pumpkin, Candy Corn, a Witch Hat, a Monster, some Foxes, a Tiger, a couple of Ducks, (...possibly a bit nervous being so close to the tiger...) Movie Brads, and the orange gecko from our Reptile Set. With a strip of Geometric Washi, to match.

Technically, a rainbow doesn't contain neutrals, but there are quite a few cool brads that are black, white, grey, and in this case, tan and BROWN, so I figured I'd add a few pages to reflect that. Here you can see: the Kennel Mix, a Paw Print, critters from the Jungle Mix and Lion, Tiger Zebra Set, a Teddy Bear, various Shell Brads, a Fan, a Sunglass Brad, Flip Flops and a refreshing Beer Brad. With a bit of Wood Washi to hold the title.

The PURPLE page boasts some yummy Grape Brads, a Butterfly, a purple Fairy, a lavender unicorn from the Unicorn and Rainbow set, Knitting Brads (they're on sale!) a Party Hat, Stitched Flowers and Mini Stitched Flowers (also on sale!) as well as Dragonflies; all atop some Checked Purple Tape.

The pages are constructed from graph paper, backed with plain white cardstock, and measure just a smidge over 3.5 x 5.5". I used my vintage typewriter to add the words on coordinating strips of paper.

There are still more colors (and more neutrals!) yet to come, so I hope you'll stop by the Eyelet Outlet Blog again next week to see more Rainbow Brad goodness!

Mandala Monday(s)

Apparently I haven't quite gotten used to putting Mandala Mondays on my blog; and thus today we have a double header featuring this week and last week too!

February 21st: A collaged mandala built of hearts and circles punched from text paper and magazine pages; with some fussy cut peonies at the center. 

February 14th: A relatively rare "Re-Run" dating from 2016; super-bright colorburst on watercolor paper layers that have been cut out and stacked up. With a little bit of bling, because that always makes everything better!

Bright Borders

At Jingle Belles, we're still taking inspiration from this cool holiday photo, and you've still got time to join the fun. Just choose any aspect of the picture that appeals to you... the colors, the foliage, the stockings, the mantel, the bricks... and incorporate that into your holiday card!

This week I was inspired by the colors and patterns on the stocking furthest to the right in the photo. I love that combination of pale green, creamsicle orange and bright blue (with little hits of white and pink); as well as the way the simple shapes have been stacked and arranged to create an all-over pattern. I compressed and overlapped the layers to fit my 6" square card, but found that by using some of my favorite border punches and a bunch of (non-holiday) patterned papers, I was able to achieve a similar effect. A Lawn Fawn Journal Card, some Eyelet Outlet Enamel Dots and a bit of machine stitching complete the design. 

Be sure to hop over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's card and start thinking about which elements of the inspiration photo most appeal to YOU! ♥

Beary Happy

Birthday cards are always fun to make, especially if they are BEARY special and feature Eyelet Outlet Bear Brads... plus some sweet Mini Bee Brads, like this one, does!

There are lots of adorable animal brads in the Eyelet Outlet Store, I'm pretty sure you can find your favorite there!

Lauren Bergold

hopes you have a 

BEARY happy day!