Happy Independence Day

It's nearly time to celebrate the USA's birthday. Eyelet Outlet Flag and Hat Brads take center stage with Red, White and Blue Star Brads as well as accents of Red Dot Washi and Blue Star Tape.

Red, White and Blue Shopping List:

Flag and Hat Brads

Red, White and Blue Star Brads

Red Dot Washi

Blue Star Tape

All the embellishments you need for every occasion you celebrate can be found in the Eyelet Outlet Online Store. Hip, Hip, Hooray!

Lauren Bergold

wishes a very Happy Fourth of July to all who are celebrating!

Blog * Instagram * Facebook

Valentine's Day Down on the Farm

Love is in the air at Eyelet Outlet as our udderly adorable farm animal brads are having a field day pairing up to celebrate their favorite holiday. This pun-tastic set of mini greeting cards features the moo-velous cows from our Cow and Goat Brads, the Pig and Sheep set, Horse and Pony Brads, as well as four washi styles: Farm Tape, Red Dot Washi, Wood Tape and Brick Washi. 

Barn to be Wild Shopping List:

Cow and Goat Brads

Pig and Sheep Brads

Horse and Pony Brads

Farm Tape

Red Dot Washi

Wood Tape

Brick Washi

Check out all of farm-tastic brads and tapes at Eylelet Outlet, 

for cards that are outstanding in their field! :)

Lauren Bergold

can literally NEVER resist a diabolical pun!

Blog * Instagram * Facebook

Christmas in July

Let's beat the summer heat today by thinking about Christmas!  I broke out my Eyelet Outlet holiday brads to create this sweet gingerbread card.

For this card I chose one of the many sliders in the Cricut image library. These look great with ribbon running through the cut outs, but today I wanted to use the Eyelet Outlet red and white dot washi tape, so I applied the washi to a strip of card stock to serve as my ribbon.  

I chose one of the houses from the Gingerbread House Cookies image set and using the offset feature created a shadow layer for the house, then I flattened both layers together and made the house a print then cut image. The fun really kicked in when I began embellishing the house and slider with Eyelet Outlet gingerbread girl brad, holiday tree, sticky backed pearl heart, and a snowflake brad.

Hope all of our Eyelet Outlet fans are keeping cool in the heat wave and have a happy Fourth of July weekend!

First Responder Birthday

Hi Friends! kel here today to share a birthday card for a special little boy!

My kids are gearing up to go back to school in just a few short weeks so I wanted to start prepping some birthday cards for them to give away because I inevitably end up needing them!! My youngest is still obsessed with vehicles of all types, especially emergency ones so these First Responder Brads ended up being perfect to make a card with!! In fact, he wants to keep it so I might need to make another if he won't give it back lol!! 

I also added some fun washi tape to the bottom of the card. This Road Washi Tape is just the perfect complement to these (or any vehicle) brads, and I thought that this Red Dot Washi Tape finished the bottom of the card really nicely! The last thing I did was add some Yellow Glitter Enamel Dots to the bottom corner of the card to balance out that yellow "hooray" sentiment. 

Super fun preschooler's birthday card!! Thanks for stopping by today and see you again soon!!

lovies, =o) kel

Black and White (Again!)

I (Lauren) really thought I was done making Valentines. In fact, I had a totally different plan for this week. And then I sat down with my Eyelet Outlet Tapes and Brads and it turned out I had two more ideas, lol!

My first card features a heart covered with Red Dot Tape, inspired by something I saw on Instagram, in which the artist covered a shape not with neat strips of washi, but little randomly torn segments. It gives a totally different, much more casual look, that I really like. For this method instead of cutting the shape from white cardstock and then covering it with tape, I covered an area of cardstock slightly larger than the heart template I wanted to use, and then traced and cut out the shape after all the tape was applied.

When I had my heart all set to go, I added a glittery "XO" in letter stickers, and made a background using a sort of gridded patterned paper, with strips of Love Tape, Music Tape and Music Note Washi. I don't actually need to mass-produce cards for anything just now, but the next time I do, I want to remember this method because it was easy and fun!

For my second card, I went back to lining the tape up neatly. In this case it's the gorgeous wide Butterfly Music Washi, and instead of placing the strips of tape right next to each other, I left a gap between each segment about the same size as the gap between the lines of notes on the tape itself. For my sentiment I found the perfect pre-made journaling card, which I trimmed down a tiny bit, because I didn't want to cover more of the pretty background than I had to, lol! I placed a pink Heart Brad directly over a pink heart that was part of the card's design, then added a Butterfly Brad and a Butterfly Profile for even more texture and interest.

I hope you'll be inspired to look at your tapes differently and try something new! For even more inspiration --up close and personal-- be sure to check out our newly published 2018 Trade Show Schedule on the sidebar to see when Eyelet Outlet will be coming to a town near YOU! ♥

Lauren Bergold

can be found here every Wednesday, 

at Jingle Belles on Fridays,

and on her own blog the rest of the week!

Maybe I'm a-MAZE-d

Happy New Year, Eyelet Outlet fans! It's Lauren here again, with some fun and a-MAZE-ing ideas for Valentine cards!

But first, a shocking true confession: somewhere in my home there is a small book of maze puzzles that I got at a garage sale last summer for making exactly this sort of awesomely punny card. Alas, I could not find it anywhere. So I did the next best thing, I googled "copyright free clipart maze" and was spoilt for choice. I sized my favorite maze to fit an A2 card and printed out several copies on plain white cardstock, along with a few different sentiments, so I could experiment with multiple ideas. In the end, my two finished cards use one of my all-time most loved free fonts ("Mom's Typewriter") with the "MAZE" in the first card highlighted in good old "Arial". Once the nuts and bolts were taken care of, it was time for The Fun Part: playing with my Eyelet Outlet goodies.

I decided to make my own patterned paper background using this beautifully bold and graphic Love Tape. I cut a panel of plain white cardstock to 4 x 5.25" and set about covering it with neat strips of tape, staggering the words a bit to make an attractive pattern, and folding the ends of the tape around to the back of the panel to make a nice neat edge.

When my background was completed, I used a template to trim my maze into a heart shape, backing it (and my sentiment strip) with a skinny mat of glossy black cardstock. Then I outlined a white Heart Brad with thick black permanent marker to make it stand out more, and affixed it to the center of the maze, with some Car Brads driving along towards it, and a few bright Heart Enamels scattered throughout the design.

My second card also started out as an A2 but eventually I decided I wanted this one to be more symmetrical, so the finished card is actually a 4.75" square. (I'll either mail it in a slightly oversized A7 envelope, or tuck it into a package or gift bag.) I used the same technique as above to cover a panel in Red Dot Tape, then combined my printed sentiment with just one word from the Love Tape, which I adhered to white cardstock, trimmed neatly and affixed with foam tape for a bit of dimension. I added the gorgeous red Heart Jewel Bling, added a couple of mats, et voila!

Be sure to check back here on the Eyelet Outlet Blog each day, for more brand new, freshly made inspiration from my awesome fellow EO designers!!! ♥

Lauren Bergold

hopes that your 2018 

is off to a great start!

Very Merry Monograms

If you're anything like me (Lauren) the week before Christmas is all about getting those holiday presents wrapped and delivered, either in person or via the mail. Here's a fast and easy idea for personalized gift bags, and best of all, it uses something I know you already have in your crafty stash: gorgeous Eyelet Outlet Holiday Washi Tape!

Customized monograms are simple to make, thanks to the fact that our computers come loaded with beautiful fonts. Having measured the front of my plain white, medium-sized, big-box-store gift bags, I knew my oversized initials needed to be just under 8" tall, and no more than 6" wide. Since these bags are for two of my favorite kids, Carlos and Isabel, I tried a few different styles before settling on a free font called Vexler Slip. I gave the letters a medium thick outline in black, but no fill color, so that when I printed them on plain white cardstock, I could apply the washi tape directly on top of the outlines, and still see exactly where to cut out when I was done! Then came the fun part: playing with all my pretty red and green tapes!

I decided to start in the middle of each letter and work towards the top and the bottom in a sort of mirror image arrangement, but honestly there is no bad way to do this and neither precision nor a plan is needed! In fact, this would be a great project for the kiddo's to do: let them go wild adding as many (or few) different styles of tape, in whatever order or pattern they like, until the entire monogram is completely covered with washi. 

There's really only one absolutely necessary step, that comes when all of your tapes are on, but before you cut the letter out: be sure to burnish the tapes really well, to make sure every single one is firmly stuck down. You can use a bonefolder for this, or I use the hard plastic handle of my scissors. Then it's time to cut neatly around the outlines, which, as you can see, are still perfectly visible through the tape. Et voila! Fancy holiday monograms that can decorate a card, a package, or even be strung together to spell out a holiday greeting!

I've used mine, as we know, on a pair of gift bags for my young friends. You can seriously use ANY combination of tapes for a project like this, but in this case my letter C features: super-cute Green Santa Tape, Holly Tape, Skinny Merry Christmas, Solid Skinny Bright and Pastel Green; while the design behind the letter on Carlos' bag also has: Skinny Gold Dots, Red Dots, and Vertical Red Trees. 

Remember to look at all your tapes in the planning stages; I've got quite a few non-holiday reds, greens, pinks and even gold mixed in with my more specifically Christmassy patterns. Basic designs like dots, stripes and solids really do go with everything. On Isabel's initial and bag, I used: Santa Washi Tape, Red Dots, Merry Christmas, Skinny Pink Tape, Wide Tree Tape, and Season's Greetings.

Of course good design is important, but really... EVERY gift that's given with love looks beautiful under the Christmas tree, doesn't it?

Wishing the happiest and most joyful of holidays to you and your family! ♥♥♥

Lauren Bergold

spends more time on her blog 

outside the holiday season, honestly!

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Hi folks, it's Lauren here again. When my niece Madeline was little, any time she was asked what her favorite color was, she immediately said, "RAINBOW!" Maddie is thirteen now, but I'm pretty sure that rainbow is still her favorite color, and it's mine, as well. So today I have a trio of rainbow cards which feature some of my favorite old and new Eyelet Outlet products.

Have you seen the brand new Pipe Brad Sets? I think they're one of the coolest items in the new Fall Release, because there are just so many ways to use them! Each packet contains faucets, valves, straight pipe and elbow joints, so the combinations are nearly endless. My fellow designer, Susan made this clever card using the pipes and valves and this one that features one of the faucets quite brilliantly. Mine is not as practical, but it has a lot more color, lol!

I pieced together a bunch of the pipe segments and had them lead to a faucet that dispenses rainbow swirls which I water colored using all my favorite shades of ColorBurst pigment powders. I added a computer generated sentiment mounted on a mat of Glitter Black Washi for a bit of sparkle.

My second rainbow idea involves a bunch of my favorite Eyelet Outlet Washi Tapes, including: Purple Zig Zag, Blue Dots, Skinny Green Stripe, Tape Measure Washi, Orange Fans, Red Dots and just a few of the colors from the Skinny Washi set. I used the same sentiment as the first card, but this time I trimmed it into a little banner shape and added a Heart Brad.

For my third card, I got my ColorBursts out again, and this time painted swirling lines in colors that match the six shades which come in each pack of Crayon Brads. These are no longer in stock online, but I did manage to snag some this summer in the EO booth at Scrapbook Expo, so it's definitely worth a trip if that fun show comes to your town! (I got those fab Gingham washi tapes there, too!) My top tip for neatening up watercolor accents is to use a very fine-lined black pen to outline each element, then fill in any voids with a coordinating brush pen. I added a multi-color sentiment this time, and called it a day.

The EO design team have been super-inspired by all of the new brads in the Fall Release, so be sure and check back each day and see what we are getting up to next!

Lauren Bergold's favorite color

is still "RAINBOW!" 

♥♥♥

Down on the Farm

Have you seen the awesome new brads in the Eyelet Outlet Fall Release? There are some really great ones this time, and I confess that the series of farm animals are some of my (Lauren's) favorites. There are Roosters, Cow and Goat Brads, and Pig and Sheep Brads. There's even a cool Truck Brad that coordinates pretty well and of course we already had Ducks and Chickens (and Eggs!) and a bunch of other Animal Brads so the possibilities are pretty endless. I stuck with just the farm animals this time, though, and made a set of Artist Trading Cards.

I love the smaller size of ATC's. They are typically 2.5x3.5" ...the size of standard playing cards. In fact I've used some old playing cards as the base on which to build these.

I also like that ATC's are often created as a series of related cards, because you can choose one set of supplies, but make a bunch of different ideas.

For each of the cards in the farm series I've featured one of the new Farm Animals inside a vintage slide mount, then added them to a playing card covered in torn bits of ledger and map paper, as well as bits of dictionary pages with animal definitions on them.

I've added strips of Red Dot Washi and Skinny Gold Pattern Tape as accents.

Finally I used my old school Dymo Labeler to create an appropriate farm animal pun for each card: "Legendairy" for the Cow Brad, "Fowl Play" for the Rooster and Chicken, "No Kidding" for the Goat, "Sheep Thrills" for the Sheep and "Hogs and Kisses" for the cute Pigs.

I hope you'll be inspired to try out a smaller format like ATC's; and be sure to remember that Eyelet Outlet Brads are the perfect accents for this size!

Lauren Bergold

can be found here on Wednesdays

on her own blog the rest of the week,

and at Jingle Belles-- with Stephanie-- every Friday!