Dia de los Muertos

The Day of the Dead (November 1st) is a remembrance and celebration of friends and family who have passed away and Sugar Skulls are one of the day's most beautiful symbols. This card features Eyelet Outlet Sugar Skull Brads, as well as Rose Brads, a Sunflower Brad and some Mini Bees; with Skull and Bones Washi Tape serving as the perfect background.

Shopping List:

Sugar Skull Brads

Rose Brads

Sunflower Brad

Mini Bees

Skull and Bones Washi Tape 

The Eyelet Outlet Online Store has all the brads, tapes, bling and enamels you could possibly wish for, whether you celebrate Halloween, Dia de los Muertos, Thanksgiving or all of the above!

Halloween Treat Bags

Halloween is just around the corner and what could be more seasonally appropriate than some "boo-tiful" little treat bags. There's a complete step by step tutorial showing how I made some on the Ranger Project Page, using Ranger Archival Inks, Transparent Gloss Texture Paste and Liquid Pearls; I'd love for you to pop over and take a look!

Mandala Monday

Douglas Adams' fans will be (mildly) excited to learn that this is Mandala Monday number 42 for the year; and while it does not (as far as I know) solve the mysteries of life, the universe and everything, it's brightly colored and (mostly) symmetrical; as well as being contained in the tiny library catalog card journal that my friend Mary (@millwoodstudioart) made for me!

Pink Christmas!

It's that time again at Jingle Belles, our favorite prompt of the year: PINK CHRISTMAS! In which you make and link new holiday cards that are predominantly PINK and we (Stephanie and Lauren) donate $2 (apiece!) per card to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation! Yes, you can link as many cards as you'd like to and no, your cards don't need to be entirely PINK but we'd like the pink to be the main color. Options regarding size, shape, themes and additional colors added in with the PINK are up to you! 

Sound good? Then without further ado, here's my card:

You know how it is when you have NEW crafty goodies: you just cannot wait to use them, then you can't stop, right? I am currently obsessed with Wendy Vecchi's NOT Your Ordinary Card Collection from Spellbinders, so for this card I broke out the Christmas Add-On Stamp and Die Set and used the triple holly leaf die to very quickly cut lots of layers from textured pink cardstock; which I then inked and stacked, in two five-petal layers for each flower, into poinsettias, finishing off with the three berry cluster at the center, and finally a few tiny stick-on pearls plus a few cuts of the beautiful, delicate greenery die. I used the sentiment stamps from the set and a Build-a-Plaid background made with the second smallest stencil and Pink Peony Archival. A little bit of lace, some darker pink mats and a bit of machine stitching and I was good to go! There's a little more detail about the making of the poinsettias and the use of the Build-a-Plaid Stencils on my blog.!

The poinsettia-making process is made much easier by starting out with a 3/4" circle of adhesive cardstock, upon which you stack your first layer of five poinsettia petals; then you add five more petals... (staggered between each pair on the first round) ...and make them immobile with a second 3/4" circle of adhesive cardstock on the back.

Speaking of EASY: of course you can use the Build-a-Plaid Layering Stencils without any special equipment but... IF you happen to have the MAKE ART Stay-tion, not only do you never have to worry about securing the stencil edges with any sort of adhesive, you can also do things like an evenly spaced diagonal plaid background with NO measuring or worrying about keeping the stripes parallel. I do like to place a small tape loop behind my paper before I begin, so that it doesn't shift as I change stencil directions, but other than that the four super-strong, never-pinchy magnets that come with the Stay-tion are more than adequate to the task of holding the stencils no matter how many times you re-arrange them.

I do hope you'll head on over to Jingle Belles to see Stephanie's gorgeous PINK CHRISTMAS creation and then start planning what you'll link up with us this time. This challenge (#JB2421) runs until 6pm (Eastern) on Wednesday, October 23rd.

Scaredy Cat?

There's no need to fear! Fun and fabulous Halloween cards are easy as (pumpkin) pie with Eyelet Outlet Small Eye Brads, Spider Brads, Spider Washi and Glitter Black Tape paired with the sweet kitty, spider webs and sentiment from the Halloween Add-On to Wendy Vecchi's Not Your Ordinary Card Collection from Spellbinders.

And YES, the Build-a-Plaid Layering Stencil Set continues to be very addictive (in a GOOD way!); this time I've used Cactus Flower, Petunia, Violet, Orange Blossom, Tea Rose, Fern Green and Prickly Pear Archival Inks from Wendy's Designer Series Line at Ranger. I love that they are translucent so that you get different tones in the places they overlap!

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!

Stuck on Stickers

I haven't made a sticker mandala in ages, but I had so much fun with this, I predict you'll be seeing additional ones fairly soon! I used my Helix Circle Tool to draw some concentric circles and a Letter It Fineliner from Ranger for the smaller shapes that hold the puffy animal stickers. Reinforcement circles (cut in halves) and tiny triangles give the design more structure and tiny flowers have a bit of sparkle irl. In the center the sweet kitty from Dina Wakley's Pocket Circles Stamp Set is the perfect mascot!