Actually, Cats Have Staff

Here are TWO versions of a cute and snarky cat card: one featuring beautiful, realistic Eyelet Outlet Feline Brads; and the other spotlighting our adorable Kitty Brads. Comical Cat Tape and Wood Washi are pitching in to make the perfect backgrounds.

Fabulous Feline Shopping List:

Feline Brads

Kitty Brads

Cat Tape

Wood Washi

The Eyelet Outlet Store also stocks Black Cat Brads and Silhouette Kitten Brads as well as lots of other critters from the backyard, the farm, the beach, and even the jungle. Check out the Animal Brads section today or better yet, check the Tradeshow Schedule to find out when the EO Booth will be coming to a town near you!

SOS553: Eat Five a Day

You may already have guessed that the new challenge at Shopping Our Stash, "Eat Five a Day" involves making a card which features at least one fruit and/or vegetable; which means I can skip the lengthy introduction and show you my card, right?

This is not just a card with multiple fruits (pineapples, orange, strawberries, cherries and watermelon, to be specific) but for sheer ancient stash-usage, it's going to be hard to beat. I don't think there's a single thing on here that is less than four or five years old; and a few things (like the faux polaroids and the Love, Elsie background paper) are probably ten or more! Basically I sat down with a neutral background, added fruity washi, and then piled on as many stickers and punch-outs as I could possibly fit on one 5.5" square card.

Be sure to check out all of the other gorgeous and inspiring cards from the SOS Crew. Then link up your own fruity- or veggie-centric card at Shopping Our Stash. SOS553: Eat Five a Day runs until the evening of Monday, August 11th.

ICAD (again!)

Rounding up the last full week of Index Card a Day, and here are the cards from the week that was: 

Day 58: Mandala Monday

I don't know why this particular brand of index card divider gives a sort of mottled effect when you apply/blend inks directly onto it, and I found that disconcerting at first, but if definitely adds another dimension to a super-inky design! In this case, the inks are the new Simon Hurley STELLAR Foam Ink Pads, which I applied in concentric circles with a Ranger Mini Ink Blending Tool. Design elements added with black Letter It Fineliners; details with a white Posca Paint Pen.

Day 57: One Staple Collage

Off-prompt with a One Staple Collage featuring Edgar Allan Poe. This one took longer to arrange than most, but I like how it (FINALLY!) turned out.

Day 56: Off-Prompt

Splitting the difference between an ogee pattern and florals, here are inky circles surrounded by brush-marker swipes and loose outlines. Simon Hurley Stellar Ink in "Prom Queen"; Tombow Dual Brush Pens in various shades of pink, orange and yellow; Letter It Fineliner (.04) in black.

Day 55: Cloverleaf or Roundabout

As anyone whose ever flown into or out of Newark Liberty Airport will tell you, New Jersey boasts many examples of both cloverleaf and roundabout traffic patterns. Here is my artists' impression of one such. In green. Which... irl they usually are not...

Day 54: River

Super-simple, very pared down version of a river featuring torn cardstock and machine stitching. Because I am emphatically NOT a minimalist, this design took me much, MUCH longer than something complicated would have done, lol. But I love the result.

Day 53: Ogee or Paisley (Part 2)

Because honestly, who can choose JUST Ogee or Paisley... I love both, so I did a version of each on successive days. This is (I hope it's obvious!!!) the Paisley one.

Day 52: Ogee or Paisley (Part 1)

The Ogee pattern is something I learned a few years ago during #ICAD and have enjoyed creating ever since! This version was rendered with Tombows; outlines and details added with Letter It Fineliners. PS: I find a gridded index card MOST helpful for making vaguely symmetrical patterns.

♥♥♥

JB2515: Tic-Tac-TWO!

It's the second week of our crafty Tic-Tac-Toe game at Jingle Belles so here's a reminder of the board:

And here's what I made this week:

My stash of classic Basic Grey holiday papers is dwindling, but being a top-notch hoarder, I do still have some medium-sized pieces (from which my two background pieces hail) and lots of little scraps (from which I diecut all of the shapes to paper-piece these adorable Impression Obsession Retro Ornaments. By which you may well have already deduced that this week I chose to work the middle row of Diecuts + Paper Piercing or Piecing + Ornaments.

JB2515: Tic-Tac-Toe runs until next Wednesday evening, July 30th. Check out the original post at Jingle Belles for all the info and the Linky tool to add your own creations!

Daisies and Dragonflies

Since it may be literally impossible to have too many birthday cards in one's stash, here's an easy, elegant one that combines Eyelet Outlet's beautiful White Daisy and Dragonfly Brads with stamped flowers and coordinating diecuts.

Shopping List:

White Daisy Brads

Dragonfly Brads 

Whether your card stash needs cards that are elegant, cute, masculine or funny, the Eyelet Outlet Store has all the embellishments you need to make it happen! 

ICAD Because I Can

Another week of making art on index cards looked a bit like this. Check out the ICAD Base Page on the Daisy Yellow website for prompts and info about this 61-day challenge; or visit @indexcardaday on Instagram. 

Day 51: Whole Lotta Lotus Mandala Monday

Not the fanciest mandala I've ever drawn but I definitely feel like I can now draw a lotus anytime, anyplace, for absolutely any reason... or no reason at all. Wahey!

Day 50: Clouds

 I adorned an unlined index card with loose random watercolor blotches by smooshing Simon Hurley’s luscious new Stellar Foam Ink Pads from Ranger onto my craft sheet, spritzing, dipping the card into the ink, and letting the colors dry. Later I went back with Letter It Fineliners to “find” the clouds and added lots of fun doodles with my Posca paint pens.

Day 49: Connection

It's a two-index-card layered collage creation in which each level is ok on its own… but they’re better (imo) together!

Day 48: Taxi 

I was thinking (again) about placing text on different angles and axises and had a bit of a play with some ancient vinyl letter stickers... which then essentially got completely covered up by the adorable children's dictionary #taxi illustration.

   

Day 47: Off-Prompt

This is my version of a cool flower zendoodle that I spotted online somewhere and apparently didn't save the info for (sorry!) There is quite a bit of pale pink shading IRL that doesn't show up in the pic and I am not sure about the vast amount of white space but... it was fun to draw and chalks off another day of ICAD!

Day 46: Pivot 

Here's a card that did not come out the way I thought it would; I was basically trying to #pivot the heart and background to be interestingly contrasting on each side and... well... it's definitely quite flowery, lol!!! :)

Day 45: Terra Cotta

I started out with the intention of finding/mixing the best/closest shade to a true terra cotta using my Tombow Dual Brush Pens and a waterbrush; but as I was playing with the colors I started being interested in all the variations and the way the component shades of orange, tan, pink, beige and brown worked together, so it veered a bit into Deconstructed Terra Cotta... with doodley flower(ish) shapes.

♥♥♥

Wishing you a wonderful, productive and creative week!

Treeskirt Tic-Tac-Toe

This fortnight at Jingle Belles, we're playing Tree Skirt Tic-Tac-Toe, which is kind of like "Beach Blanket Bingo"...but Christmassy... and with a lot more embellishments! We'd love for you to join us; all you have to do is pick a row (horizontal, vertical or diagonal) and create a lovely new holiday card featuring all three elements in that row. 

and here's my card:

I chose the left-hand column, which gave me: Animal + Diecut + Red, so I went with the sweet bunny (plus a couple of trees) from Pretty Pink Posh's Holiday Pals stamp set; Diecuts in the form of Penny Black's Trees and Hills in the background and MFT's Happy Holidays frame; and three different patterned papers (plus a mat) in Red. 

I'm joining the Christmas in July fun at Addicted to Stamps and More, which runs until July 29th if you'd like to, as well!

JB2515: Tree Skirt Tic-Tac-Toe runs until the evening of Wednesday, July 30th. Join us today at Jingle Belles!