NOT Just for Cards!

Eyelet Outlet Washi Tape, Paper Flowers and Brads, that is. You can also use them to make customized gift bags, like this one. Just cover plain white cardstock with neat strips of tape (this variety is Happy Birthday Foil Washi)... print out an initial in your favorite font (this one's called Chicken Pie and was free on dafont.com)... trace and cut. Embellish with a few shades and sizes of Solid Color Paper Flowers held on with Candle, Party Hat and Cupcake or Cupcake Swirl Brads. For even more color and pizazz, diecut hearts from a coordinating tape, like Pink Checked Washi and use one repeat of the Birthday Tape to create your sentiment strip. Scatter a few Round Sequins and you're good to go. And yes, all of the above looks pretty good on a matching birthday card, as well!  

There are brads, tapes, flowers, sequins, bling and more for every style, theme or occasion you can possibly imagine in the EO Store... you should probably check that out!

Lauren Bergold

now only buys plain gift bags!

Blog * Instagram * Facebook  

It's in the Bag!

I (Lauren) love giving super-fancy presents to my friends and family for holidays and birthdays, but I definitely don't like paying fancy prices for giftwrap and bags; especially when I have lots of lovely Eyelet Outlet Bling and Washi Tape to make my gifts stand out! 

For these gifts I wanted a really elegant winter and festive feeling, without embracing any particular holiday, so I went with lots of blue, silver and white. I used Glitter Winter Washi on my first bag, and surrounded it with Glitter Silver Star Tape plus Silver Foil Skinny Tape. My diecut snowflakes are topped with 1 1/2" Snowflake Bling and Bumpy Heart Bling and I've scattered some Blue Pearl Bling and Snowflake Sequins around for good measure. My second design features Glitter Tall Tree Tape surrounded by White Foil and Twig Tape. 

Whatever colors, themes and holidays you love, I bet there are Eyelet Outlet Brads, Bling, Tapes and Sequins to make your gifts as beautifully individual as you are! ♥

Lauren Bergold

hopes you have a very

Happy New Year!

Washi + Flowers + Bling!

Hi folks, it's Lauren here again. Everyone knows how much I love to wrap presents, especially for my nieces and nephews. So when my niece Lindsay Marie turned fifteen (15!!!) last week, I wanted to go big, which meant I needed ALL my favorite Eyelet Outlet embellishment categories: washi, flowers and bling!

I've mentioned before that I'm kind of... well... cheap, lol. So if I can buy plain giftbags inexpensively --or better yet-- if I can re-use a shopping bag, I'm a happy camper. In this case I started with a very pretty oversized bag from the New York Botanical Garden. It was exactly the right size and had that neat fern detail on the front and back. Unfortunately, it had the logo, too; in really large print. I tried putting ordinary washi over top, but the black typeface still showed through. Luckily, I had some glitter tape, which is very sparkly but not at all see-through. It also lets me avoid the wrath of Lindsay's father (my brother, Bill) who has declared glitter giftwrap and ribbon OFF LIMITS in his home, since he's only just now finally gotten all the carpets clean after last xmas' giftwrapping excesses.

I love to personalize presents. It is my belief that *everyone* secretly hopes the fanciest gift is for them, and that most of us totally get a kick from our name being on it! I recently found these beautiful, oversized, silver chipboard letters, and they looked good on top of the glitter tape, but my motto is: NEVER give up a chance to embellish!!! So I added a strip of Zigzag Purple tape and a fun Skinny Foil tape to each letter before adding them to the bag.

Lindsay's favorite color is purple (in case you hadn't guessed, lol!) so I finished off with some Purple Paper Flowers with purple Flower Jewels at their centers. I cut some older green flowers apart to serve as leaves, and finally added most of a package of clear Swirl Bling... cut apart and slightly re-arranged, in order to fit the space better. 

Don't forget to drop by again for designer inspiration, every day! ♥

Lauren Bergold

has rarely met a Sparkly Thing

she didn't love!

Giftwrapping, In the Bag!

Here's a shocking true confession: I (Lauren) hate buying gift bags! They're so expensive, and often not very good quality. The good news is, I have Eyelet Outlet washi tape and embellies, so instead of buying pre-made gift bags, I buy inexpensive plain bags in bulk and personalize them! 

This bag was made for my sister, Amie's, birthday gift. And I confess it was made a bit last minute, so I needed a few Ninja tricks to speed up the process. Trick #1: Washi tape covers a lot of ground quickly. Standard sized (5/8") tape is great, but at almost 1.25" our many beautiful EO Wide Washi Tapes are even better, and the Wide Lines Washi I've paired my butterlies with is 1.75". The latter has so many colors and patterns, it matches nearly every tape in my collection! Trick #2: Use a shoebox to hold the gift bag open. This will make it much easier to apply the tape, since the empty bag will want to keep folding up on you. You really needn't cover the entire bag; a few strips around the top of the bag add loads of interest. You don't have to take the tape 360 degrees, either, but the nice thing about tape is, it's one lonnnnnnnng piece that already has adhesive! So if you decide you do want to go all the way around the bag, it's easy! However much or little tape you decide to use, you'll want to start and end in the "folds" at the side of the bag, so you never see the ends of the tape. Apply one strip at a time, and if you're not confident enough to "eyeball" a straight line, a tiny pencil mark at each edge will keep you on track!

Trick #3: An oversized monogram is a really fast way to personalize your bag. My giant letter A is almost 5 x 8" and I printed it as an outline, on plain white cardstock, using a free font called "Storybook". I applied the same tapes I used on the bag, but you could use a coordinating-- or even a contrasting-- design to get different looks. Trick #4: Since most washi tape is translucent, you don't need to pre-cut-out a monogram to use as template! In this case, I just applied the tape right over the outline, and as you can see, it was still perfectly visible for me to trim up afterward. I use an Xacto knife for interior cuts (like the triangle at the top of the A) and regular scissors for the rest.

 

Trick #5: A coordinating mat makes your monogram stand out even more. Having said that, the "ghost effect" of the un-matted dimensional letter gives a totally different, but equally cool look. In this case, though, I did use a mat, which I chose to go with the Solid Color Paper Flowers I added for a little more color and interest. Since they come in nine colors, it's not hard to find a shade that will match perfectly! Trick #6: Green flowers are an awesome addition to your collection, because you can snip the petals apart and make them into leaves, as well, like I've done here. 

Again, this is hard to beat for speed and ease: I attached the flowers to the monogram with some beautiful oversized Pearl Brads and affixed the monogram to the bag with a few strips of foam tape, for extra dimension. Finally, I applied a strip of extra tape to a scrap of cardstock and fussycut a few extra butterflies to perch on the flowers.

With hundreds of varieties of washi tape in the Eyelet Outlet Store, I'm confident you can find LOTS of designs you'll love... and lots of ways to use them! ♥

Lauren Bergold

really, reallllllly loves

wrapping presents!

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!

Do You Know How Many Types of Bling Eyelet Outlet Sells?

Ok, that's a bit of a trick question, because I (Lauren) actually don't know the answer. But it's *A LOT* lol! We have Individual Jewels, Swirls, Strips, Shapes, Bumpy Bling, even Bling surrounded by More Bling... all of which come in at least six colors; and then nearly every variety is also available in Pearls. Like I said, it's a lot of bling, so if you cannot find a style you love in the Eyelet Outlet store, it may not actually exist on this planet. All of which may have tipped you off to the fact that my project this week is bling-related, lol!

One of the first things I thought of when I saw the new Fancy Bling Borders-- which are part of the amazing Fall Release, and will be in the shop verrrrrry soon-- was that their size and shape made them a substitute for places where I'd ordinarily use ribbon. And since they're very sticky, and quite bendy, I wondered if i could even use them in a 3D application, like say, on a gift package. Obviously, it'd have to be a special package, and reusable, so I separately covered the lid and the bottom of a small box with some glossy pink giftwrap. Then I trimmed a section of the border big enough to drape across one corner of my package, and wrap down onto the vertical surface of the box top. I un-peeled and stuck the center (horizontal) bit on first, then carefully pressed down first one side and then the other. When the entire segment was adhered, I trimmed the excess at the lower edge away with scissors.

The only thing you cannot do with the Fancy Bling Borders is tie them in a bow. But luckily Paper Flowers make an equally nice embellishment. Especially if you adorn them with even more bling, lol! On the smallest flower I used a Pink Flower Jewel. On the largest, I used another, but then surrounded it with Clear Oval Jewels and small Pink Gems. For the middle flower, I used a 12mm Round Pink Jewel with the Clear Edge, and surrounded it with Tear Drop Jewels, which are technically not quiiiiiiiite in the shop just yet, they're part of a huge update of new styles that will be coming ANY MINUTE! (& totally worth waiting for!)

Of course you cannot give anyone a package as fancy as this without a card. Which is also going to have to be pretty blingy, just to hold its head up, right? Still playing with the "embellished flower" ideas that I used on the package, I made blossoms with 12mm Pink Jewel Centers surrounded by Clear Oval "petals". For stems, I carefully positioned some Champagne Bling Strips so they looked like they were bending in the wind, and added leaves made by cutting apart some of the brand-new, coming-soon Heart Jewel icons. This may be the heaviest A2 card of all time, lol, but I love how it came out!

I hope you'll be inspired to check out the many beautiful varieties of Eyelet Outlet Sticky-Back Bling and create your own stunning combinations! ♥

Lauren Bergold

is a big fan of Eyelet Outlet bling.

In all its shiny, sparkly, magical fun varieties!

♥