SOS541: Thrice as Nice

You may already have guessed that this fortnight's challenge at Shopping Our Stash involves THREE of... something. In fact we'd like to see you use three (or more) patterned papers on your card. Not to brag but I've used twelve!

In the interests of full disclosure, I just got this adorable Simon Hurley Road Trip stamp set from Ranger and I was dyyyyyying to "test drive" it, but not only did I use a dozen different ancient patterns to piece it, they were all SCRAPS, so I feel like I did come down on the correct side of stash usage for this one.

Just FYI, the first company to make an all-wheel-drive car that's plaid will get my money. Meanwhile, there are lots of other beautiful and inspirational cards for you to see at SOS, before you start planning what you'll link up with us this time. The "Thrice as Nice" challenge will run until the evening of Monday, February 24th.

SOS534: Time for a Hot Drink

It's time for a new challenge at Shopping Our Stash and this time we'd like to see (as the title implies) cards and projects which feature your favorite hot beverages. Mine is (surprise!) COFFEE!

I'm fairly proud of my stash usage here, I've gathered a bunch of sadly neglected items and given them some love. Fair Warning: the three lynchpin items are sadly out of print. The Caffeinated Flamingo was one of my all-time favorites from The Rabbit Hole Designs; the Coffee Pots Embossing Folder from Darice seems to be similarly unavailable. The former was a prize I won in a Coffee Lovers' Blog Hop a few years ago; the latter a gift from my friend Michelle. I don't use either of these enough, and somehow I've NEVER used them together, so it was especially exciting to combine the pair. I stamped, colored and paper-pieced the flamingo, and I'm taking bonus points for remembering to stamp the legs onto my background paper so that I wouldn't have to cut them out. (Go, me!) I embossed the coffee pots on watercolor paper and then painted them a bit wonkily, mightily resisting the impulse to outline all of them with a .01 Fineliner. The "blahmingo" sentiment came with the flamingo; the second sentiment is from Honey Bee Stamps' Perfect Blend Stamp Set, which... you guessed it... is also out of print, but that's ok because the point of Shopping Our Stash is to unearth the older things YOU already own and I bet --like me-- you've got some awesome goodies you've forgotten all about and will enjoy reviving again!

Completely coincidentally, this theme lines up perfectly with the 2024 Fall/Winter Coffee Lovers' Blog Hop (they have some AMAZING prizes, if you like that sorta thing; their hop ends on Friday, 11-8-24) so you can enter both by making just the one card, woohoo! The Time for a Hot Drink Challenge (#SOS534) runs until the evening of Monday, November 18th.

Books. Cats.

The new (adorable!) Eyelet Outlet Black Cat Brads are not just for Halloween, they add feline festiveness to any card and can be found peeking around stamped or diecut corners of any description. This happy little scene also features Book Brads and Book Washi; the yellow flower from our Frog Set. 

There's a sweet bunny reading in a Green Pattern Tape armchair, which is sitting on a Strawberry Tape throw rug... stamps are from Avery Elle's Feels Like Home set, stamped in Ranger's Jet Black Archival and set atop a Wood Washi floor. The coordinating envelope also has a strip of Cat Tape.

You'll find all of the above (and so much more) in the Eyelet Outlet Online Store; and don't forget to check the Trade Show Schedule to see when the Eyelet Outlet Booth will be visiting your town this summer!

Here Be Monsters

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A monster, a panda and a dinosaur walk into a card kit… resulting in one of the cuuuuuuutest Paper Anthology Class-in-a-Kit selections ever: Here Be Monsters!

The monster, panda, dinosaur and sentiments are all from Spellbinders' Monster Birthday collection, but since it's a kit, all of the diecutting, stamping and pattern-combining has already been done; you can jump right to the assembling and sending. Each critter is adorably paper pieced and framed in his or her own little scene, with just the right embellishments, including various sizes of Googley eyes.  

This kit includes everything you need to make all three cards as pictured, just add adhesive! Easy to follow, step-by-step instructions are included, as well as a nice big color photograph to guide placement.

♥♥♥

Also new in our Etsy Shop, Cardmakers' Vintage and Found Paper Assortments; mini collections of curated backgrounds, perfectly sized for A2 cards.

The Here Be Monsters Class in a Kit and Cardmakers' Vintage and Found Paper Assortments are both available now in the Paper Anthology Etsy Shop, Paper Anthology Design; where you'll also find other Class in a Kit selections, Holiday Jumpstart kits and Birthday Jumpstarts, too!

Index Card a Day (Week 7)

We're rounding the corner into the second half of July (already?!) and here's my own output of Index Card Art from this past week:

ICAD24-45: Mandala Monday

Wouldja believe... It's a Marvin Mandel Mandala Monday?! In perhaps the most stunning case of vintage-paper-related serendipity EVER, I found this business card stuck into one book, and the illustration of this (completely unrelated) gentleman in another book about ten minutes later. I went looking for the name "Mandel" in an old telephone book I rescued to use in collages and did NOT find a Marvin, but there were half a dozen others which are partially obscured by the mandala petals. I used a combination of Wendy Vecchi Archival Inks, a white Posca pen and Prismacolor Pencils to add color; and Ranger's Letter It Fineliners for all the shapes. As always, my Helix Circle Maker Tool was invaluable.

ICAD24-44: Seashell

Super-literal take on the prompt: I white-embossed a set of HoneyBee Seashell stamps; blended some of my favorite Wendy Vecchi Archival Inks on top; then splattered and outlined and played with the results.

ICAD24-43: Fragile

 My collage admittedly has a #FRAGILE connection to both the prompt and to reality. But… you know… in a good way! I am especially proud of the way most of the design is built around a similar color palette; AND, especially the fact that the banana, the ballet dancer and the Chinese character for banana all have a similar shape to them. 

ICAD24-42: Off Prompt OSC

And here we have world’s most random One Staple Collage! FYI, One Staple Collage is an ICAD tradition; the brief is to create a collage which is held together with… wait for it… one staple! Slightly trickier than it sounds but a lot of fun!

ICAD24-41: Forest Green

I set out with the intention of working on today’s prompt of #FORESTGREEN and thus handcut some beautiful wonky leafy shapes from every green EXCEPT forest green… then branched off into altered/doodled patterned paper scraps in various shades of blue. But that’s why they’re called “prompts” rather than assignments… they’re meant to get you started and you can go in any direction from there! 

ICAD24-40: Off-Prompt

Today's is actually not my favorite card, although I love the funky ink-splotch colors; and stand by my decision to cut around the flower edge on the right hand side. Plus… to enjoy and learn from the process rather than focusing purely on outcome is (to me!) the true spirit of ICAD, so woohoo!

ICAD24-39: Off-Prompt

Yes, I do tend to save my scraps of patterned paper, even quite small ones that I probably shouldn't bother with, but they're excellent for stamping and paper-piecing, not to mention for those nights when I just feel like cutting out random shapes, stacking them, and arranging the result into a funky pattern. 

Week 5: Index Card a Day Round-Up

It's another week of Index Card goodness and a reminder that the Daisy Yellow Art Blog is a fine source of information and inspiration; as are a few selected Instagram accounts including mine (@llaurenb) and the official @indexcardaday feed!

ICAD24-31: Mandala Monday

It’s a loosey-goosey, wavy-gravy, somewhat deconstructed Mandala Monday; Tombows and Letter It Fineliners on an index card divider.

ICAD24-30: Sepia

A super fast One Staple Collage in (mostly) sepia!

ICAD24-29: Off-Prompt

The most random of all random collages everrrrrr?! Off-prompt and a bit fishy on Day 29.

ICAD24-28: Steampunk

A fairly tangential take on Steampunk, lots of vaguely wheel- and cog-ike shapes, glued on top of ink-blended circles of Distress Oxide Inks on a green index card. Not exactly where I thought this would be going when I started out, but that is the fun of ICAD you can take a left turn at any point and wait to see what happens next!

ICAD24-27: Ranunculus

Flashing back to a prompt I skipped last week; at the time I didn't have an interesting idea, but suddenly I thought that if I just kept cutting wonky flower layers and stacking them up, the result would be cool and possibly a bit ranunculus-like, which I think kinda worked! Also a fab use of quite a few patterned paper scraps although I still have PLENTY left... sigh...

ICAD24-26: Strawberry

Not my favorite card ever but... the pattern was fun to doodle and they are more or less recognizable as strawberries so my work here is through!

ICAD24-25-: Off-Prompt

Have already made several doodled cards involving strips or stripes, I decided to try my hand a collage of strips. I chose a few vintage book pages with similar colors, tore them vertically, glued them onto an index card, and added super-simple stitching.

♥♥♥

Not Enough Shelves!

Apparently, there are a few people in the world who think that some of us have too many books?! This is an understandable error, but in fact, as Mr. Bear (from Waffle Flower's Books & Coffee Combo stamp set) points out, the actual problem is NOT ENOUGH SHELVES! For this card, the shelves were created by neatly lining up strips of Eyelet Outlet Book Tape. The computer generated sentiment (created with a free font called Bohemian Typewriter) leaves room for a trio of Book Brads and is matted on a panel of Wood Tape; Cactus and Heart Brads add extra texture and interest to this cozy little scene.

Here's a Handy Shopping List featuring all the items used to create this card:

Book Brads
Book Washi
Wood Tape
Cactus Brads
Heart Brads

Visit the Eyelet Outlet Store for an incredible selection of Brads, Tapes, Bling, Enamels, Flowers and so much more!

SOS521: Water, Water, Everywhere!

This fortnight at Shopping Our Stash, we'd like for you to create a card with a large body of water; like an ocean, lake or river, if you SEA what we mean, lol! Here's what I made:

As soon as we start talking about water and those that dwell within, I'm usually already getting out my collection of Lawn Fawn sea creatures, of which I have quite a few, stretching back at least ten years. Quite often I paper-piece the little dudes for maximum cuteness; plus it's a brilliant way to use up patterned paper scraps, so that's what I've done here. I used stamps from Lawn Fawn's Critters in the Sea set as well as two mini sets, Seahorsin' Around and I Like You (A Lotl). I stamped two of the sentiments from those sets but spelled out "Birthday" using letters from Henry's ABC's die set. My "ocean" is part of a map-centric patterned paper from 49 and Market's Sunburst collection and the filmstrip is an older die from Elizabeth Craft Designs.

The "Water, Water, Everywhere" Challenge (SOS 521) runs until the evening of Monday, May 20th. Why not check out what the fabulous Crew have made to inspire you, then start planning what you'll link up with us this time.

JB: Creature Feature (week 2)

We're still celebrating Holiday Creatures at Jingle Belles, which means we'd love to see cards with dogs, cats, polar bears, penguins, moose, cardinals, yeti, gnomes, etc.; but of course there's no critter that says, "Traditional Xmas" more than reindeer, right? Case in point:

Admittedly, not all reindeer are portrayed driving home for Christmas, but luckily Lawn Fawn's Car Critters have fixed that crucial gap in the stamping market. I've had my original set (which has sweet little bears) and the Holiday Add-On (which has the reindeers) for a couple of years, but I'm still not tired of thinking up little scenes for them. In this case, I've used patterned paper for everything but the deer themselves, which I colored with my Tombow Dual Brush Pens from Paper Anthology.

I'm entering this card into Lawn Fawnatics Challenge #159 as it is both Lawn Fawn centric AND Monochromatic!

Be sure to check out Stephanie's awesome card at Jingle Belles, then start thinking which Creature YOU will Feature when you link up with us! Challenge ends next Wednesday evening, November 1st.

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.

Index Card Round Up: Week 3

Still loving the freedom of making a completely random piece of art on an index card each day, with no pressure to end up with a perfect finished piece... just playing and trying different ideas!

Day 12: Glyph (sorta)

A somewhat tangential take on yesterday's "GLYPH" which has several meanings in various contexts, but "a hieroglyphic character or symbol; a pictograph" probably sums up the general idea best. I got an entire little booklet of safety icon stickers for less than a dollar on a mega-thrifting excursion with my friend Heather last year, and ever since I've been meaning to use them in a sticker mandala. And now I have! :)

Day 13: Superstition

Tuesday the 13th isn't (as far as I know) a source of superstition anywhere, but I still love that Tammy G elected to imbue this prompt with a bit of numerical significance. My handcut and paperpieced rendition of a black cat is placed against a full moon, thus also giving a tangential nod to the MOONLIGHT prompt from yesterday.

Day14: Typewriter

I am lucky enough to own a few vintage typewriters and I love using them to add text to cards and collages; also... they're pretty cool for staging. The typewriter on the index card is a Remington clipped from a slightly grainy 1940's magazine advertisement, it's surrounded by random lines from a typing textbook and the word "daisy" stamped in a typewriter font. I typed "daisy" repeatedly over an illustration of daisies, then fussycut and added them to the index card. The typewriter in the photo is my 1952(ish) Smith Corona portable, with beautiful two-toned green keys.

Day 15: Sea Glass

I wasn't entirely sure where I was going when I started painting random shapes in blues and greens. When I was done painting, I wondered if I should outline them? When they were outlined, I wondered if I should add doodles? I try not so succumb to, "What if I wreck it?" anxiety, but let's face it, we ALL feel that way sometimes, so here's my top secret strategy: Each time you get to a place where you fear you might "wreck it"... take a photo! Then fearlessly take the next step! 

(All of my favorite blue and green shades of Wendy Vecchi Archival Inks, painted using a waterbrush full of isopropyl alcohol. Outlined and doodled upon with Ranger Letter It Fineliner Pens.)

Day 16: Alphabet

Here's an example where I loved the idea... but not necessarily the finished card. My concept for #ALPHABET was to handletter a (repro) library card, then add found text to each letter. There's not particularly anything WRONG with the result, it's just somehow *not* quite what I was hoping for. If and when I figure out why not, you'll probably see another version. In the meantime, Day 16 was a triumph of process if not outcome, which is what ICAD is all about!

Day 17: Sunflower

About as literal as you can possibly get, just layers and layers of handcut patterned paper petals around a brown center, with a little machine stitching to hold it all together.

  

Day 18: Off Prompt

Every year of ICAD there are a couple of prompts I need to Google, and in 2015 or so, one of those was "OGEE" which turned out to be a style of pattern that I knew and liked, but never realized it had a specific name, lol. Since then, I've drawn or paper-pieced an index card version each summer, and here's the latest version, handcut from patterned paper scraps and machine-stitched for extra texture and durability!

Hello, Sweetie!

This fortnight's challenge at Shopping Our Stash (#497) is called "You're So Sweet" and, as you may have guessed, we'd like to see cards and projects featuring sweets and treats, like ice cream, candy, fruit or maybe CUPCAKES?!

Several years ago, I was given this beautiful set of Stephanie Barnard oversized cupcake "Fold It" dies (the finished cards are just a hair under A2-sized) which I'm ashamed to say had not been used or even opened until now. Not sure HOW such a glaring oversight could've occurred... but I've made up for it by making THREE delicious cupcake cards using nothing but ancient patterned paper scraps, sparkly Eyelet Outlet Sequins and 1.5 sheets of kraft cardstock.

Head on over to SOS to see what the rest of the crew have made to inspire you; then take a little stroll through your stash of older goodies to see what unused treasures might be lurking there!

Yeti, It's Cold Outside

At Jingle Belles, we're still playing our crafty holiday version of Tic-Tac-Toe and you still have time (until next Wednesday evening 5/17/23 in fact) to join the fun:

This week I chose the left-hand column, which gave me DESIGNER PAPER + XMAS TREE + DIECUT OR PUNCH. Since, technically speaking, I fulfilled all of those with my cluster of punched patterned paper trees; I decided to grab the middle column, as well, for which I added SNOWFLAKES (Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Brads) + SILVER (two retired EO Washi varieties... silver metallic and silver glitter) + STAMPING (paperpieced Lawn Fawn Yeti & sentiment).

Once again the gang at Sketch Saturday provided the perfect sketch (#725) to get me going, for which I thank them! This challenge runs through lunchtime, next Friday, May 19th.

Why not mosey on over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's beautiful card and check out the Readers' Gallery, then start planning what YOU will link up with us this time!

SOS486: Time for Presents

You may already have guessed from the title that the new challenge at Shopping Our Stash is to feature presents on your card OR make a Thank You card for gifts you've received. Both of these lend themselves nicely to holiday themes, but having realized that I would need a kiddo birthday card early in January, I decided to get a jump on that occasion instead.

My presents are stamped on scraps of patterned paper using Wendy Vecchi's Doodle Celebration set, which only debuted last summer, but... all the other items used on this card are at least a few years old and some are distinctly elderly. For example, my sparkly animals are fussycut from a Creative Imaginations paper I bought when my nieces (now college aged) were small; the flowers are Scenic Route, which I think closed nearly a decade ago; and the colorful faux polaroids are Echo Park circa 2017. I've rounded up a few older brads for extra texture and turned the entire thing into an oversized slimline card.

Be sure to visit SOS to see what the other designers have made to inspire you!   

Jingle Belles "Creature Feature" (Week 2)

Nothing says, "Happy Holidays" quite as well as a reindeer road trip, am I right? And since this is Week Two of our "Not a Creature Was Stirring" prompt at Jingle Belles, this seemed like the perfect time to pull out my Lawn Fawn Car Critters stamp set and Christmas add-on to do some paper-piecing.

I come from a long line of quilters, so perhaps that's why I find that stamping the car, accessories and deer on subtle patterns is very appealing; certainly I always have LOTS of little scraps that are perfect for this sort of card. Additionally, all of the background pieces on this card came from the scraps box as well, including that perfect A2-sized panel of ancient MME Cozy Christmas with the cars on it! Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Brads and various sizes and colors of Enamel Dots round off the design.

Be sure to visit Jingle Belles to see what Stephanie has made this week to inspire you, then start planning your own Creature or Critter card!

Merry Sketch-mas

We've got a fabulous sketch challenge this fortnight at Jingle Belles, thanks to the very talented Stephanie; so we'll be making cards based on this helpful roadmap:

And here's how I used the sketch this week:

Lawn Fawn's Critters in the Arctic has been around for ages, and every time I see it, I'm a bit sad that I didn't purchase it when it was available. Much to my surprise, when I mentioned that to my friend Elisabeth at Paper Anthology a month or so ago, she said, "Oh I think I can still order that!" and sure enough... it arrived this week! I decided to paper piece the critters and add them to the diamond shape in the sketch, on which I fashioned (very abstract) layers of sky, snow and water. In my washi stash, I found the perfect grey tape to act as a sentiment. I matted out the design with some silvery Lawn Fawn snowflakes and a bit of stylized graph paper. To give the critters enough room, my diamond got a bit bigger than I planned, so I slightly truncated the sketch, in order to make it fit a 6" square card.

I hope you'll visit Jingle Belles to see what Stephanie has made and then start planning your own festive Sketch Card!

Paper Punched Mandala Monday

It's the 37^th Mandala Monday of 2022 and a good example of the EASIEST type of mandala to start with: Punch or diecut some circles and hearts, stack them, overlap them, layer them and glue them... et voila! Instant Mandala with absolutely NO drawing skills required!

 

Paper Pieced Daffodil Card

The other day I set out to make a special card for a daffodil-loving friend, and discovered --much to my surprise-- that I literally do not own ONE single daffodil-related item?! No stamps, no diecuts, no stickers; I couldn't even find a nice sized daffodil illustration in my collection of falling-apart collage books. What to do? I searched for a simple clip art image of daffodils, printed it out, and used it as a template with scraps of patterned paper.

I stapled the flowers to some yellow gingham paper, and cut out around the outside lines. I set those pieces aside, and stapled the clip art flowers to some dotty orange paper, and cut out around the centers. I glued the centers to the flowers and using the clipart as a guide, I outlined all the petals and centers with a fine-tipped black pen; adding shading with a darker orange pen. Since the foliage on daffodils is pretty straightforward, I just doodled some stems and leaves of various heights onto green scraps and cut them out. Then I arranged everything on a Nestabilities Label Shape diecut, added a mat, and machine-stitched around the whole thing.

This is probably not something I'd attempt with... say... a gazzillion-petaled hydrangea, but for simple shapes it's a fun and easy method that lets you make a completely original card!

SOS 476: She Sells Seashells

It's a SHORE thing this fortnight at Shopping Our Stash because this time we'd like to see cards and projects that incorporate anything to do with sea, ocean, beach, shells... you get the idea, right? Since I'll take any excuse to bring out some of my older but still beloved Lawn Fawn sets, especially Critters in the Sea, this seemed like a good time to do so.

I've gotten better (and a tiny bit faster, thankfully) at coloring, but I really love paper piecing this set ...and it's an excellent way to use up scraps, of which I have MANY... so that's what I did. I couldn't resist (didn't even try to!) bringing in my (slightly newer) Lawn Fawn Axolotl and Sea Horses; I drew and fussy-cut my own strands of kelp; and chose a few oceany Eyelet Outlet Brad Styles (Seashore, Sandcastle and Shell Corner) to set the scene. Oh and YES, the orange border was fashioned using my absolutely ancient scallopy deco scissors, purchased at a big box store in approximately 1997, which I think you'll agree constitutes Stash-Shopping to a fairly heroic degree!

Be sure to visit Shopping Our Stash to SEA all of the amazing Design Team cards, then come out of your SHELL and join the fun by linking up with us this fortnight!

Doodle Holiday

I mentioned yesterday that Wendy Vecchi's new Christmas in July release from Ranger features TWO new seasonal MAKE ART Stamp Sets; but yesterday's card only used Doodle Christmas; so today let's take a look at Doodle Holiday! I started out with the intention of making a Christmassy, paper-pieced tag in shades of bright green and hot pink, with the super-cute birdie as the star of the show. But midway through, I realized that as wonderful as the holiday aspect of this set is... you can actually use it all year round, for pretty much ANY occasion. So I went kind of neutral on that front.

I did paper-piece most of my elements though; stamping the bird, birdhouse, swag of greens and holly leaves on scraps of patterned paper, then cutting them out and embellishing them a bit with markers. I stamped the doodle stars in three groupings on a #8 Tag and colored them; then arranged all the elements, adhering some of them flat to the tag with Perfect Card Adhesive, and popping a few up on Letter It Clear Foam Tape. Et voila!

PS: The staging for these photos is composed of scattered sheets from Dina Wakley Typed Ledgers Set 2, which technically have nothing to do with the project; but they make quite a nice background, don't you think?