SOS525: NBUS

In case you're wondering, NBUS stands for Never Before Used Stuff; and this fortnight at Shopping Our Stash, we're asking you to create a card that features items in your stash which are more than one year old, but haven't, for whatever reason, been used yet. Here's my card:

In the photo below you can see my Never Before Used item: a fabulous IO stamp set called "Aloha" which Stephanie gave me for my birthday last year (or possibly the year before?!) which I absolutely LOVE but somehow, despite the fact that I've gotten it out periodically and re-admired it, I had still never inked up?! I did my own variation of "spotlight stamping" by using the MISTI (also a gift from Stephanie, quite a few years ago, which I do actually use ALL the time!) to stamp a panel of tropical flowers and leaves. Then I carefully lined up my Altenew Bold Alpha dies to spell "ALOHA" and cut them from the background. I left the surrounding area plain, but used my Tombows to color the flowers and leaves of the diecuts, which I then shadowed with a second set of diecut letters in bold blue, before placing them back in the holes from which they came. I added tiny (ancient!) Prima paper flowers with Eyelet Outlet Pearl centers; added a bold blue mat and a surrounding panel of 49 and Market's Sunburst collection and called it a (sunshine-y, tropical) day!

Take a look over at SOS at what the rest of the Crew have made, then dust off one (or more!) of your Never Before Used items and make a card to link up with us! The NBUS Challenge runs through Monday evening, July 15th.

Seeing RED!

It's the second week of our "Rudolph the RED-Nosed Reindeer" theme at Jingle Belles, so we're still creating holiday cards that are predominantly red!

I recently got this beautiful Altenew Perfect Poinsettia 3D Embossing Folder at Paper Anthology, and I couldn't wait to use it! I embossed the design on watercolor paper, added color by scribbling all my favorite RED (plus a bit of yellow gold) Tombow Dual Brush Pens onto my craft mat, then picking them up with a waterbrush and painting the flowers. When the panel was thoroughly dry, I added some RED Metallic Rub-On to make the design stand out even more, with a bit of Sunburst Stickles on the berries. I diecut the sentiment (ancient Hero Arts) from both deep red cardstock and Red Non-Shed Glitter Paper, which I also used to mat my card. It's a poor workwoman who blames her tools, and a poor blogger who blames her camera, but I have to tell you that this photo reallllllly does not do justice to all the tones, dimension and shimmer of the original!

Be sure to hop over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's beautiful card (Spoiler Alert: It's RED!!!) and start planning what you'll link up with us. The challenge runs until next Wednesday evening, February 14th.

New Class: Paper Pieced Posies

New Jersey crafters, join me for a three card class at Paper Anthololgy, featuring bold blossoms from Elizabeth Craft Designs. Inspired by Carta Bella's Farmhouse Summer collection, the color palette splits the difference between Summer and Autumn, and the Altenew Painted Encouragement Sentiments make these all-occasion cards super-sendable! We'll stamp the blooms on patterned paper, add a little shading with Tombows, fussy-cut, add Penny Black foliage accents, et voila! Details, dates and sign-up info on the Paper Anthology Blog.

Gnome Alone

I come from a family that loves puns, and luckily that skill is appreciated in my role as an Eyelet Outlet Design Team Member. When I saw the adorable (g)new Gnome 2 Brads and Mushroom Washi Tape I couldn't wait to use them together with a suitably punny sentiment!

I couldn't decided whether to use the tape as a background or as part of my sentiment, so I decided to do both! I made two mini slimline cards, which each measure about 3.25 x 6.25". For the first, I applied the Mushroom Tape to some plain white cardstock, diecut the letters of "GNOME" (using Altenew's Bold Alphabet Die Set) added a pair of Gnomes to the M and E, and set the whole thing against a strip of Grass Washi. For the second card, I framed a single strip of the same Mushroom Tape with strips of Glitter Red Washi and Brick Tape, then stamped the sentiment and the little mushroom house from Lawn Fawn's Gnome Sweet Gnome stamp set. I added a Gnome 2 Brad in front of the house, and a Sun and Cloud Brad to the scene. Since I had used the Red, Green and Brown Gnomes from the set, it seemed wrong not to make an extra little tag for the Blue Gnome to inhabit; it features the same Mushroom and Grass Tapes, plus letters cut from Wood Washi (using My Favorite Things' "Connected" Alphabet) and a couple of Bee Brads up at the top.

If you can't get enough Gnomes, there are still a few original EO Gnome Brads in stock and they're on sale... while they last!

Everybunny's HOPPY!

Oddly enough, this Eyelet Outlet Easter card has NO brads on it... HOW is that even possible? Well of course I (Lauren) love our Brown Rabbit Brads and our Pastel Rabbit Brads, but there are also quite a few awesome Bunny Tapes and Rabbit Washi styles, and I've used two of them here:

I applied both styles of tape in neat strips onto plain white cardstock. Then I used two alphabet die sets (Altenew's Bold Alphas and Lawn Fawn's Henry's ABCs) to cut out the sentiment from the colorful Bunny Tape. I fussy cut five sweet little dudes from Wide Rabbit Washi to peep out from the letters of "Hoppy" and added a few pink Heart Enamel accents. I layered the whole design over a couple of strips of Pink Check Tape and called it a day.

Be sure to visit the EO Blog often for more Easter card ideas by the amazing design team! ♥

SOS464: You Deserve a HAND

There's a brand new challenge at Shopping Our Stash and this time you've got a choice! For "You Deserve a HAND" you can make a card that features a literal hand OR you can go with a metaphorical hand, and make a Congratulations card! As you can see, I chose the former.

Since one of the best possible uses for hands, imo, is holding a cup of coffee, I chose to use my Riley & Company Midge with Coffee stamp to commemorate that fact. I've colored Midge with Tombows and Prismacolor pencils, but paper-pieced the coffee mug. The big honkin' letters are Altenew's Bold Alphabet die set, cut once from Eyelet Outlet Donut Washi (adhered to plain white cardstock, neatly, in strips) and then a second time from dark brown cardstock to serve as a drop-shadow. Background paper is from the late great Basic Grey's "Out of Print" collection. (I still miss BG!!!) The newest items on this card are the small puffy alphabet stickers, which are Pinkfresh Studio and probably only a year or so old.

I hope you'll hop over to SOS to see what the crew have made, and start planning what you're going to link up with us this time! 

Ghost in the Machine

Introducing Rinea's most unique new product: Ghost Ink! Designed to be used with their amazing metallic foiled papers (of which The Ink Pad has a fabulous selection) Ghost Ink actually removes a layer of color, rather than adding one, for quite a magical effect. More info on how I used it to make a super fun (and VERY shiny) card; on The Ink Pad Blog.

Bold Prints Birthdays

What could be handier to a cardmaker than a stamp that can cover your whole card?! Because that's what the stamps in Hero Arts' Bold Prints line do, and there are quite a few available at The Ink Pad! This one is called Triangle Tapestry, and you'll find all the details for using it to make these two super-easy cards on The Ink Pad Blog this morning!

October, in Living Color

It's hard to believe we're already a third of the way through October, but the calendar in my 2020 Traveler's Notebook assures me that's the case. So this seems like a good time to show off this month's spread and then talk about my 2021 set-up, featuring some fabulous new finds from The Ink Pad. All the details, pics and product links on TIP Blog today!

All Treats, No Tricks

Halloween is nearly upon us, but there's still time to make and send some BOO-tiful cards to our friends and family. Here's one that features cuuuuute Lawn Fawn critters, luscious Distress Oxide Inks, and some fab new die sets from The Ink Pad. All the details and product links are on TIP Blog!

Folded Fronts

The Collins Virtual Online Symposium was a very inspiring experience for all of us at The Ink Pad. There are loads of fabulous new products on order; but in the meantime, we're having fun exploring some of the ideas gleaned from the wonderful classes. Dare 2B Artzy showed off a card that had a really cool fold, so I just had to try my own version. The results are on The Ink Pad Blog this morning!

I used Altenew's Hennah Elements Stamps for my focal images, and nestled the fussy-cut flowers and leaves on stacked Postage Infinity Dies from Hero Arts. Both cards are A2s, and landscape oriented,so that they have their hinges on the lefthand side. This allowed me --before I began to embellish-- to SCORE and fold back a portion of the card fronts. So the card on top in the photo above has had it's front scored vertically at the 2.75" point, and folded back. The card on the bottom had it's front flap scored diagonally and folded back. It may be a bit hard to see what I'm saying in that picture, so here's one with the fronts standing open:

I stamped the flowers in WOW Clear Embossing Ink, embossed with Ranger Black Embossing Powder and colored them with Distress Oxide Inks in Chipped Sapphire, Peacock Feathers, Milled Lavender and Wilted Violet to match the grungy gel prints I used as colorblock panels. (By the way, that is one of my favorite gel printing tips: clean-up prints, uninteresting ghost prints, and failed photo image transfers are GREAT for backgrounds and diecutting!)

I hope you'll be inspired to try a new fold for your cards or art journal pages. And speaking of NEW, our website has a brand NEW section for all the freshest items, you should probably check that out! 

Lauren Bergold

loves making cards!

Because Layers are GOOD!

Especially when the layers in question are Altenew's awesome Layered Medallion Stencils, from The Ink Pad! All the details and a few more colorways are on The Ink Pad Blog this morning!

Floral Fantasy

I'm absolutely smitten with AlteNew's beautiful Persian Motifs Stamp Set, which I got (surprise!) at The Ink Pad! The set has three different lotus-like flower groupings, plus a bunch of extra leaves and swirls, and four useful sentiments in an understated font. I had fun experimenting with several different combinations of embossing inks and powders, the results are on The Ink Pad Blog this morning!