Here comes SANTA CLAUS

This fortnight we're making cards featuring none other than the main man of Christmas, in any of his many forms: Jolly St. Nick, Pere Noel, Julenissen, Father Christmas ... aka SANTA CLAUS. By the way, if you're looking for additional holiday inspiration this month, there's a special "Christmas in July" feature on the Eyelet Outlet Blog each Saturday afternoon, featuring our amazing fellow EO designers, so be sure to check it out!

Meanwhile, here are our Santa-centric designs:

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I've used the current Atlantic Hearts Sketch. I  was tempted to make all those fab little flags out of washi tape, but instead I decided to make the pennants out of paper scraps and topped them off with a strip of gorgeous Eyelet Outlet Black and White Wide Flowers tape. Since, as the name implies, this tape isn't actually colorful, I added my own tinting with a few alcohol ink markers. Strictly speaking, it's not even a holiday tape, but I liked how it went with the vintage flora on the pretty reproduction vintage postcard I used as a focal image. I topped the design off with a beautiful EO paper flower stack and a large pearl brad."

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "Doodlebug's Here Comes Santa Claus collection is filled with lots of fun little Santas like the one I featured on this week's card.  A few coordinating stickers and an Eyelet Outlet Enamel Dot on the top of his hat, and this one is ready to go ... and mailable (tip 5"x 5" square cards can be mailed in 5" x 7" envelopes with no additional postage charge) ... I had so much fun there's another card on my blog."

Link up here by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, August 2nd. Keyword for galleries and flickr is JB:17:15.

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True Blue!

So many cool and creative takes on our Fireplace Inspiration photo make it really HARD to narrow down to just a few. But here are three that made us feel anything but blue:

Yogi of Art with Yogi

...took inspiration from the beautiful palette and softly falling snow; then constructed a fabulous easel-style card with those elements!

Robyn Willis of Waterlily Cards

...used an embossing folder and some clever fussy-cutting to make an actual fireplace, then built the room from the inspo pic around it... right down to the adorable pooch! 

Heidi Weaver of Stampin Along with Heidi

...was inspired by, "The wonderful blues, the silhouettes of trees, the touches of green, and the starry sky" and found all of those in a new holiday crafting collection!

Many thanks to everyone who played along, we loved seeing EVERY single card! We'll be back at midnight with a brand new prompt that celebrates a guy we all know and love... ♥

Beautiful Blue Christmas

We're still creating with inspiration from our fabulous Fireplace Photo this week.

Here is what we made for our second round of inspired cards.

Lauren's Other Card

Lauren says, "Once again I've chosen to feature that beautiful palette of bold blue and white, with some little pops of green. I've given the birch logs stacked in the fireplace a bit of a flashback to their previous incarnation ...as a forest. The diecut pine tree with the typing on it is a technique that I've done a few variations on over the years, and there's more info on my blog today, as well as a basic tutorial here. My favorite part of this card, however, is the Cerulean ColorBurst sky, sprinkled with a little snow in the form of Eyelet Outlet Snowflake Brads, along with white and blue sticky pearls."

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "This week I started with inspiration from the snowman silhouette on the mantel and continued with inset squares inspired by the shape of the fireplace and lots of fun snowflakes.  I couldn't resist topping that big snowman head with a die cut plaid hat."

Snowflakes Hanging on an Open Fireplace

This week we're bringing you some vibrant Fireplace Inspiration to inspire your design.

Maybe you'll be inspired by the fireplace itself or the vibrant color palette ... or perhaps the white silhouettes against a bright blue background ... or maybe even the firewood or cute little doggie.  Whatever inspires you, we want to see it.

Here's how we interpreted the inspiration:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I may have gone a bit overboard with incorporating elements from the design including firewood, the rich color palette, snowflakes, and even a cute little dog (courtesy of Doodlebug's Polar Pals).  Layout is from Try Stampin' - or Not - on Tuesday."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "Meanwhile, my focus is very general, I've basically just used the palette and the sparkly snowflakes! My background was created using ColorBurst pigment powders in Cerulean, Ultramarine and Indigo; I've added snowflakes via stencilled copper embossing paste, with glitter paper punches and diecuts on top. Finally, a few sparkly Eyelet Outlet Jewel Brads and Gems notch up the glam factor!"

Link-up by Wednesday, July 19th at 6pm (EST). Keyword for galleries or our Flickr Gallery is JB:17:14.

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Stars and/or Stripes... Forever!

You guys surely do know how to wave the Christmas card-making flag! We were delighted by every single card that got linked up this fortnight, but here are a few that take a starring role:

Susan B of Cardmaker's Garret

...made a bold statement with one single, perfect, dimensional, elegant, graphic red star!

Marina of My Perfect Life

...chose the "stripes" option and kind of blew our minds by making an incredible warm and charming holiday card using only black and white!

Brenda of Brenda's Scrappy Blog

...rocked the stars AND stripes, in the most beautifully fresh palette we've seen in quite some time!

We'll be back at midnight with some picture perfect inspiration we hope will have you running for your card-making supplies!♥

Pinstripes & Super Novas

We are still celebrating holiday cards that feature stars or stripes or both and you still have time to join the fun, which we hope you will! Meanwhile, here's what we made this week:

Stephanie's Other Card

Stephanie says, "Every year I manage to make at least one card and when I'm finished I say *Who on earth am I going to send that one too?* ... I combined some patriotic designer paper (combining both Stars & Stripes) with Lawn Fawn's Winter Unicorn ( for some reason, the lighting made my white iridescent sequins look pink in the photo)"

(I think you'll find, Miss Stephanie, that the answer to your question is *Lauren* lol!!!!!!) :) :) :)

Lauren's Unicorn-less and Thus Not Nearly As Awesome Other Card

Lauren says, "I made as cute a card as was humanly possible without a unicorn, having discovered a couple of Basic Grey dimensional felt stickers that i *think* may have been brought to this country on The Mayflower, lol. Ok, maybe they are not quite as old as that, but they're pretty old. They're still flippin' adorable though, imo, and thanks to an awesome sketch (PP350) from the Paper Players i knew exactly how to use them!" 

 Scroll down to the original post for complete details and to link up your own masterpiece!

STARS and/or STRIPES

It's time for a brand new theme, and since this fortnight encompasses July 4th, we thought we'd give a nod to the holiday and ask to see cards which feature stars, or stripes, or both! Here's what we made this week:

Stephanie's Card

Stephanie says, "I love these bold green stripes with the texty journaling card.  I added a wrap of regal red ribbon using this week's Sketch Saturday Layout.  I finished with white matte enamel dots & a Santa Hat Brad from Eyelet Outlet."

Lauren's Card

Lauren says, "I was tempted to go all out "4th of july meets xmas"... (and i still might do that, next week!) ...but what changed my mind was this amazingly lovely new Eyelet Outlet Star Washi that I've been dying to use on a card! Since the watercolory stars on the tape are gorgeous shades of blue and purple, that helped me narrow down my paper choices. I chose two that are not especially Christmassy, but I love how they look together and this is the PERFECT card for my friend Kate, who celebrates the Solstice each December."

Link up here by 6pm (EST) on Wednesday, July 5th. Keyword for galleries and Flickr is JB:17:13. 

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