SOS532: Halloween

It's time for a brand new, super-timely challenge at Shopping Our Stash. This fortnight's theme is Halloween, so you can either rock that holiday OR go your own way but use Halloween colors: orange, black, green, lime and/or purple. I went with the former, so that I could work in one of my own favorite Halloween colors: PINK!

I actually had an entirely different plan, but when I got out my Halloween stuff, I discovered a little un-remembered cache of Frank Garcia's Luna collection from Prima Marketing a few years ago, so obviously I immediately switched gears! The witchy and webby papers only needed a bit of distressing; the pumpkins, ghost and sentiments I fussy-cut from a few journal cards that were in the set. I added a Hero Arts' diecut black cat and half a dozen (sadly discontinued) Eyelet Outlet Mini Spider Brads and called it good.

This challenge (SOS532) runs until the evening of Monday, October 21st. I hope you'll hop over to SOS to see what the other Boo Crew Members have made to inspire you!

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.

SOS522: How Does Your Garden Grow?

If you haven't already guessed that this fortnight at Shopping Our Stash we're looking for things that grow in a garden, then frankly, I'm a bit surprised, but just go ahead and re-read this rather long sentence and you'll know for sure. Of course you can make a card that features vegetables, or even, I suppose weeds... but... if you're ME, of course you're going to go with flowers!

I didn't set out to make a subtle, nearly-monochromatic card, but while looking for something else entirely I stumbled upon the dwindling remains of Prima's Pretty Pale collection (c. 2019?) --including these metallic-tinted blooms which I had apparently cut out and never used-- so I immediately changed direction. I had a lot of fun tearing, sanding and distressing all of my layers, and was super-excited when I found a nice big piece of pink woodgrain paper (PINK woodgrain!!!) from Authentique's 2018(ish) Romance collection. I chose a kraft cardbase and did a bit of machine stitching mostly for the look, but also, when you have lots of layers, it never hurts to anchor them pretty well, right?  

I hope you'll visit SOS to check out the cards the rest of The Crew have made and then start dreaming up your own garden-centric masterpiece. 

SOS514: Winter Wonderland

This fortnight at Shopping Our Stash we've got the white stuff, and we're challenging you to make a card or project which features a winter landscape OR, alternatively, you could make an all-white card. I chose the latter, see?

Ok technically, my card is not 100% white; there's a tiny bit of tan and a little black, as well; but it's mostly shades of white: a glossy white A7 card, bright white textured cardstock, a white glitter mat, collage-style patterned paper from Prima's Pretty Pale collection (circa 2019?) which I've debossed with Taylored Expressions' Rosy Posey embossing folder (circa 2020?), part of a paper doily, some drywall tape (seriously underrated, from a design standpoint, imo!), the last little piece from a pack of Eyelet Outlet Pearl Swirl Bling, a tumble of Petaloo's Vintage Velvet Magnolia flowers (circa 2015?) from which I swapped the green centers in favor of white Pearl Brads, and finally, a bit of white machine stitching to (both literally and figuratively) hold everything together.

The Winter Wonderland challenge runs through Monday evening, February 12th. Visit SOS to see the inspiring cards from the Crew and start planning what you will make!

Too Cute to be Spooky

These sweet witches in their spooky scene are already pretty cute, but they're exponentially more adorable when Eyelet Outlet Halloween Brads join the fun. The addition of a Witch Hat, a handsome Bat Brad, a mischievous Kitten checking out a Pumpkin, a cute but creepy Spider and some pink Rose and Colored Daisy Brads make the illustration come to life; then a double mat of Glitter Black Tape and Halloween Dot Washi tie it all together.

Stay tuned to the Eyelet Outlet Blog for more Halloween and Thanksgiving projects to make your Autumn Crafting FALL into place!

SOS507: Franken-Card

This fortnight at Shopping Our Stash we're embracing the season and creating cards featuring something Halloween related; that could be bats, witches, monsters, costumes... whatever says Halloween to you! 

In the spirit of full disclosure, I have to admit that most of the ingredients on this card are only about a year old, but I was longing to use the leftovers from Prima's super-sweet Luna collection and I have absolutely no regrets, lol! The black Kromekote cardstock, assorted washi tapes and black gingham ribbon are all fairly ancient, however, so I feel I've redeemed myself on the Stash-Shopping front a little bit.

Be sure to head over to SOS to see the creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky cards the rest of our awesome crew have dreamt up to inspire you, then start planning your own Franken-Card masterpiece. Link up by 7pm on Monday, October 23rd.

Belles and Bells

This fortnight we're ringing in the new year and putting the accent on BELLS at Jingle Belles, so we'd like to see cards with sleigh bells, church bells, jingle bells or... well, whatever kind of bell you can think of. I went with an older die* that my fellow Jersey Girl and cardmaker Lorraine (of Paper Vernissage) gave me in the first or second year of Jingle Belles, and which I still find very useful and beautiful!

For this card, I cut the bells out twice: once from a scrap of velvetty-textured cardstock in a bold cerise and a second time from metallic gold, which I've used as a sort of drop shadow behind the pink. The sweet deer and most of his coordinating pink papers are from Prima's Candy Cane Lane collection; there's also some older Prima and a few anonymous scraps. I was in a shabby chic kind of mood, so I did a bunch of distressing, sanding, inking and stitching; though this A7 card is quite nicely flat and mailable.

A small (exciting!) side note: more than HALF of my 2022 holiday cards were mailable using ordinary postage! Admittedly many of them needed either an extra ounce or a second full-price stamp but still... it's a personal best that made me quite happy. I'm definitely going to attempt a similar feat this year!

Meanwhile, Stephanie's card is waiting to inspire you at Jingle Belles; you should probably hop over and check that out.

*It's Memory Box's Jingle Bell Border and seems to have been discontinued for a while; apologies if that is a bummer. I assume there are similar dies available from somewhere.

What's Pink & Vintage & Sweet All Over?

It's Prima Marketing's new holiday line, Candy Cane Lane by Frank Garcia, which is coming soon to Paper Anthology. Luckily, I was allowed to sneak a few of the gorgeous papers a teeny bit early, so I could use them for week two of PINK CHRISTMAS at Jingle Belles!

This Santa's face miiiiiight be my favorite image in the line, though the whole collection is so adorable, it's hard to just pick one. I did some tearing, some fussycutting, some distressing and layered on flowers, ribbon and White Lace Tape for extra interest. Would it be wrong to send this one to myself in December??! (Ok, yeah, it would... but luckily I get to enjoy it for the next six weeks or so!)

I hope you'll visit Jingle Belles to see the already awesome PINK CHRISTMAS gallery, and we'd love for you to link up a card or two to help us raise a little money for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation!

SOS: Extra Special

This fortnight at Shopping Our Stash the challenge is called, "What a Difference You've Made in My Life" and the brief is to make a card for someone extra-special. With Mother's Day just around the corner, that might immediately spring to mind for you, as it did for me, but you can choose ANYONE in your life, just let us know who it is in your post!

Something which has slightly changed my Mother's Day cardmaking duties in the few years, is that my mom has also become an avid cardmaker! Which is really cool but... it does kind of add a little extra pressure because now she KNOWS how things are made, lol! She's also a very keen and expert gardener, so I thought a floral theme would be cool. To encompass the "Stash" requirement for SOS, I've chosen a favorite Hero Arts Tulip die from a few years ago that I haven't used in a bit. I diecut a bunch of flowers and leaves from heavy-duty watercolor paper, then used a waterbrush and a few shades of pink and green Tombow Dual Brush Pens to add layers of (sort of) realistic color.

Other ingredients, old and new: Hero Arts' super-cool Victorian Greenhouse die, which I bought in February of 2020 and somehow NEVER used until now (?!); Penny Black's "Bloom" die; an ancient Tim Holtz Movers and Shapers butterfly die; a scrap of vintage doily; some leftover Prima papers from the Pretty Pale collection; and a brand new frame element from some amazing Stamperia paper which just arrived at Paper Anthology. 

I hope you'll head over to Shopping Our Stash to see the amazing design team cards and then be inspired to make something extra-special to link up with us this time!

Five Gooooooo-ollllllld Riiiiiiiiiiiings!!!

This week at Jingle Belles, we're still celebrating the fun categories from that old holiday favorite, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" OR you can choose to make an extra-special holiday card for your True Love OR you can make a holiday card that features hearts. Lots of choices, we hope you'll find something to inspire you! I went with the ever popular Five Gold Rings... see?

Admittedly, it's a bit of a tangential version of "Five Gold Rings" in that I used my classic Nestie Circle Dies to cut five round frames from gold Idea-Ology cardstock  then I cut circles of red patterned papers to frame up, and arranged them in a design that also incorporates some Prima poinsettias as well as an Echo Park sentiment, and still fits nicely inside my 6" square card.

Visit Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's card and start planning which of the current options will inspire your next holiday card!

Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice

If you've guessed that this fortnight's challenge at Shopping Our Stash is a celebration of all things autumnal, then well done! You don't need to include a literal pumpkin (though of course you can!) just channel thoughts of Fall, Halloween or Thanksgiving and that should point you in the right direction. Here's what I made:

A couple of years ago, I made this card that featured a chevron-patterned background made from LOTS of leftover patterned paper scraps, cut into skinny strips. A couple of weeks ago, I saw that card again and was inspired to make more of those backgrounds. I couldn't decide whether to go darker or lighter, so I made one of each!

Both cards feature ColorBursted, collaged and diecut leaves (an ancient set of Provocraft dies from Cuttlebug days that I still use a lot!); machine stitching, tiny paper flowers, Prima Pretty Pale leftovers, and the perfect orange mats from Simply Stories' (older) We Are Family collection, which I may have liberated from the Paper Anthology scrap bag!

Wend your way over to SOS to see what the rest of the design team darlings have created, and start planning your own awesome autumnal masterpiece!

Weekend Round Up

In addition to hostessing some of the challenges during Paper Anthology's WCD Crop Weekend, I also participated in a few that my friends Elisabeth Ostrowski, Shari Morris and Linda Duke were responsible for, and this seems like a good time and place to post those.

Acorns and/or Pinecones Challenge

Elisabeth made an utterly luscious card for this one, featuring vellum leaves to die for! My card has text diecut leaves on which I've smooshed autumnal colors of Tombow Dualbrush Pens, dimensional Prima flowers from various older collections and Eyelet Outlet Pinecone Brads... all set atop a piece of absolutely gorgeous patterned paper from 49 and Market's Vintage Artistry collection.

Clean and Simple Christmas

CAS cards are a true challenge for me, but this time I think I've acquitted myself pretty well. That Lawn Fawn Yeti never fails to make me smile, and he doesn't really need much embellishment to make a card work. I stacked some snowy washi tapes, added a couple of punched trees and finished off with a trio of EO Snowflake Brads.

Black and Orange Challenge

I gave myself a bit of an extra challenge on this one, I wanted to use these colors but NOT make a Halloween card! I'm happy that this is seasonless but still interesting and entirely orange and black!

 (Well ok, there's some white too...)

 

SOS Sketchfest

This fortnight at Shopping Our Stash we invite you to choose from one of four excellent and inspiring sketches by Craft with Sarah and make a card based on the sketch you choose. I went with sketch 001, which I will show you in a minute, but first, here's my card:

For once in my life, I've done a very straight-up, literal version of the sketch, though admittedly my pennants are different lengths, but that's what happens when you're using up scraps. They're scraps from some of my favorite Prima collections of the last few years though, so they're mostly pink and floral because that's the way I roll! My left hand strip is White Lace Tape from The Ink Pad which has gone out of stock, but that doesn't mean I love it any less.

I swapped out the three small circles around the large circle in favor of a fussy-cut butterfly and two ancient, tiny, Prima flowers. I added lots and lots of Eyelet Outlet Pearls because those are ALWAYS a good idea, imo!

Hop over to SOS to see the other designers cards, then visit Craft with Sarah to see the four sketches you can choose from!

It's Paper Anthology's 9th Anniversary!

In other years, we've celebrated this festive occasion over the course of a riotously fun weekend, in-person, at Paper Anthology in Kenvil, NJ. Obviously a party with loads of people jammed into one place with self-service food is not on the cards for 2020. But... we've come up with an alternative that features four days of fun, challenges and prizes on the Paper Anthology FaceBook page (which means our friends from all over the world are invited to play along!); plus four awesome Take and Makes for anyone who shops in-store or online during the party, and there might just be a few surprises as well.

There will be twelve awesome cardmaking challenges revealed over the next few days on the Paper Anthology FaceBook Page. I'll be hosting three of them, and the first is called Put a Doily On It. If you've already guessed that the brief is to create a card, layout or journal page with a DOILY ON IT... you are definitely on the right track, lol. Here's what I made:

My card is a bit like a Greatest Hits collection... it has all my favorite elements: Prima and Blue Fern Studios papers, dimensional florals, distressed edges, machine stitching and of course, the inspiration for the whole thing: a lovely 3" paper doily. Of course your card needn't be shabby chic, your doily doesn't have to be white and for that matter, you might make something besides a card! I can't wait to see what it will be.

I hope you'll join us at Paper Anthology's 9th Anniversary Party, the fun continues through Sunday night! ♥

Happy Fall, Y'all

The gang at Shopping Our Stash are always up for a celebration, especially when it can be translated into papercrafting form. So this fortnight we'd like to see... (as you've no doubt guessed!) ...cards and projects with an autumnal vibe of some sort: either the fall holidays of Halloween and Thanksgiving, or the occasion of your choice, featuring fall colors, leaves, etc. There's lots of ways to go, so we hope you'll be inspired to join the fun. Here's my card:

Lots of stash-centric goodness here: The leaves were all pre-diecut, with their edges inked and little highlights of gold stickles on them; clearly I made more than I needed for some distant fall project, stuck the extras in an envelope, and forgot all about them. I had intended to mix in more traditional reds and orange shades, but then I found the patterned paper panel with the deep denim blue flowers and changed course, lol. It's last year's Eclectic Charm collection from Blue Fern Studios, though I think there might be one or two sheets left at Paper Anthology; and despite the blue, it feels very autumnal to me. I did lots of distressing and a bit of sewing around the edges, then loaded up lots of miscellaneous Prima flowers; the cluster was from Pretty Pale, I believe, and the tiny flowers with the wooden bead centers were Georgia Blue. The only new item here is the dark blue mat that's peeking through the torn places. Two varieties of Bo Bunny's Double Dot collection (Vintage and Lace) arrived at Paper Anthology about a month ago, and I grabbed every color because they have one patterned side and one not-quite-solid side, which makes them great for cards and also as backgrounds for photographing cards! (That's a shade called "Chiffon" you can see behind my card in these photos.)

If you're feeling at all Fall... do come and join us at Shopping Our Stash! If you're not feeling it, I suggest hopping over to see the super-inspiring DT cards! ♥

Pink Christmas

It's time for my all-time favorite prompt of the Jingle Belles year: it's October, so once again we are celebrating PINK CHRISTMAS! And just like all the other years that we've done this, Stephanie and I are each pledging $2 to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, for each PINK HOLIDAY CARD card that gets linked up with us this fortnight. So we hope you'll join the fun and make lots of cards; plus we have a nice PINK graphic you can share if you'd like to!

A fast review of the rules: your card need not be entirely pink, but we'd like to see more than just the blush on Mrs. Claus' cheeks, or the scarf on a snowwoman; you can link as many new cards as you'd like to within the two week timeframe; and yes, we'll count however many pink cards you put into one post! Meanwhile, here's what I made:

I went almost entirely Prima, because they've done some really awesome PINK holiday collections in the last few years. I do have a big poinsettia that I liberated from a bit of holiday garland, and it wouldn't be the holidays without some Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Bling! I used this week's Sketch Saturday #630 to arrange my layout; though I have rotated it ninety degrees counterclockwise.

Be sure to hop over to Jingle Belles and see Stephanie's beautiful PINK CHRISTMAS creation, then start planning what you'll link up with us this time! ♥

Baby It's GOLD Outside!

If you've already guessed that this fortnight's brief at Jingle Belles is to incorporate metallics, then well done you; though we should point out that in addition to the eponymous GOLD we'd also accept silver, bronze, copper, or any other metal you'd like to add. I did actually go for the gold, though:

patterned paper: prima (top layer), creative imaginations (music), crafts consortium (red layers); tattered poinsettia die: tim holtz/sizzix; metallic papers: ideaology plus some gold foil giftwrap; distressing tool: prima; kraft cardstock: my colors; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, gluedots, sewing machine

I've incorporated two different patterned papers with metallic gold accents: the top layer is from Prima's Christmas in the Country; the sheet music underneath is Creative Imaginations, I think... it's pretty ancient though, so I might be wrong. I've also got some golden layers in my super-stacked Tattered Poinsettia, a die I've owned for over a decade, but I still use constantly.

Be sure to hop over to Jingle Belles to see what Stephanie has made and start planning your own metallic magic.

...OOPS...!

Here's a funny (...sorta...) story: We're moving into the second week of the CASE challenge at Jingle Belles, so I headed over to Stephanie's Blog to choose a card I wanted to recreate, saw this gorgeous CAS masterpiece, et voila, job done!

Except... when I went back to link to that post, I realized, it wasn't actually a Jingle Belles card. Rats. I'm happy with how it came out, though; and it features a whole bunch of gorgeous Eyelet Outlet Washi Tape, so I'll show you anyway:

Meanwhile, there are about a gazzillion other Stephanie cards made especially for Jingle Belles that I love enough to make a version of; in fact, here's one now, made for our Stars and/or Stripes challenge in July:

Ok, so... I was pretty faithful to Stephanie's design, though instead of using a bunch of star and stripe patterns to unify my inchies, I chose to combine papers from Prima's "Christmas in the Country" collection, which has plenty of nice small motifs. Since my squares are just a smidge over an inch AND I matted them as well, I elected to move my sentiment up on top of my grid to keep my card size just under A7. I did scatter some Eyelet Outlet Star Brads and Sequins on top, though, because that's one of my favorite elements in the inspo card.

Be sure to hop over to Jingle Belles and see which card of mine Stephanie has remade this week and start scrolling through to choose something YOU would like to CASE!

Hexed!

I wound up with an extra... and in this case hextra... card, so I thought I'd post it and say Happy Saturday! ♥

patterned paper and most flowers: prima marketing; ancient chipboard hexies: pink paislee; butterfly stickers: studio calico; doily tape: october afternoon; script tape, brads and gems: eyelet outlet; grey cardstock: dcwv; white leaves: ken oliver crafts; adhesive: elmers brand gluetape, gluedots, scor-tape, sewing machine

Parts is Parts

We're still making holiday cards that feature "leftovers" at Jingle Belles... like paper scraps, the "extra" background that didn't get used, the images colored in advance but not found a home for... and you're still invited to join the fun. Here's what I made this week:

ancient patterned paper scraps: prima, sei + best creation glitter paper and specialty shimmer cardstock from the paper cut + sheet music from my stash; poinsettia, flourish and joy dies: hero arts; heart and label shapes: nestabilities; xl pearl brad: eyelet outlet; ink for edges: colorbox; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape

This baby is 100% leftovers, but admittedly, by virtue of my Xmas storage system, I have somewhat stacked the deck. Several years ago, I liberated an unused hardware sorter, with fifteen 2.5 x 5.5" drawers, from Jeff's workshop. I was setting up for a cardmaking gathering with a bunch of non-papercrafters, so my idea was to make a sort of Card Buffet. I cleared out my scraps container and made lots of diecuts, pre-trimmed backing panels, and cardbases; then created a few sample cards to suggest ideas of how to combine the various ingredients. I figured this would be the most fun for "civilians" since there would be very little technique; they could just get right to the composition phase, and thus complete a bunch of cards in one evening. As it turned out, the gathering didn't take place; but the silver lining was that I had a brand new diecut storage system that I have kept because it's really helpful for making fast cards. I also kept the habit of taking my small scraps and diecutting or trimming them into panels, so that there are always lots of readymade bits that can become cards very quickly.

In this case, I grabbed a few poinsettia layers, a snowflake with swirls, a glittery "joy". a pre-inked heart, and a squarish label shape. All in pink, o'course. Et voila!

Whether you have LOTS of leftovers or just a few bits and bobs, this seems like a great time to grab them, make them into a card and link up with us at Jingle Belles. There's even a little prize this time. You know... if you like that sorta thing... ♥