Freshly Made Sketches 55

This week the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches is brought to you by me.  I always get a bit nervous when it's my  turn to host.  The old self-doubt kicks in as I wonder if I should have tweaked the sketch to make it more interesting.  I hope you like it!

This week I got it in my head that I wanted to use burlap and that I wanted to try my hand at LeAnne's fab crinkly bow.  She graciously created this tutorial for it and since I'm such a huge fan of the bow (and her) I've been waiting for the perfect opportunity to try it.

I had a bit of trouble when I tried to pick some DSP for my burlap/crinkly bow card.  The obvious choice was this Orchard Harvest paper, but I made a card with it a few weeks ago for this very same challenge (also using burlap) and I didn't want to just copy the same thing all over again.  I opted for this pretty pattern and added the burlap as my vertical layer.  Then I tried my hand at dying some seam binding ribbon with my Early Espresso reinker.  The results, though a bit splotchy in real life, are actually pretty cool.  The splotchiness seems to give it an iridescent look.  I tried valiantly for at least a half an hour to create a bow worthy of LeAnne's tutorial, but I just wasn't happy with the result so I ended up cutting off a piece of it and threading it through a Brushed Bronze Designer Button and attaching it to the bottom of my Wonderfall leaves.

In hindsight, I think my bow was probably just fine, but the perfectionist in me wasn't satisfied, so I'll give it a try again later.

In the meantime I can't forget to mention that the aforementioned LeAnne is joining the gals at Freshly Made Sketches along with the super-talented Narelle Farrugia as Guest Designers this month.  Be sure to hop on over to their blogs and welcome them to the team!  And don't forget to pop on over to Freshly Made Sketches and check out the cards from the design team.  I've got it on good authority that you'll love every one!

Thanks for stopping by!