FMS 500 Blog Candy Winners

Hello everyone!  I want to give a big shout-out to everyone who played along with our 500th sketch challenge at Freshly Made Sketches!  We had a huge turnout in the gallery!  There were lots of prizes so head on over HERE to see if you were a winner.

And speaking of winners I have three of my own.  I had three prize packages of crafting goodies to give away to three random commentors on my FMS500 blog post so without further ado here they are:

    Stephanie from Stephanie's Stampin Spot!

    Nancy from Scrapper at Heart

    Carol from Our Little Inspirations

Ladies, watch your email for a message from me!

Freshly Made Sketches 500 AND PRIZES!

Hey friends!  I'm super proud and excited to share with you our 500th sketch challenge at Freshly Made Sketches!  Our very first sketch debuted almost 10 years ago on September 7, 2011 and here we are still at it!  It's been a privilege and an honor to create alongside my Freshly Made Sketches teammates all these years and I sure hope we're around for another 10 more!

To celebrate our milestone we've got PRIZES!  Every one who links up in the gallery, and who follows the challenge rules, will be eligible for a prize from our generous sponsors!  Winners will be randomly chosen after the challenge closes on August 30th.

And wait there's more!  PRIZES that is!  Some of our design team members have put together prize packages on their personal blogs so be sure to hop on through the design team blogs to find out what you need to do to win.  I've got a prize.....or two.....or three to give away myself!

So let's get going.  Our sketch this week is designed by Linda, one of our OG design team members, and it's a classic one all the way!

I used some lovely watercolor patterned paper for my background then added a vertical layer embossed with some falling snow.  To that I added a couple of layered snowflakes - one in vellum and one in silver glimmer paper.  I twirled some silver cord around behind the snowflakes and added a slim sentiment.  It's quite sparkly and lovely in real life and since summer has finally decided to make an appearance here in New England I thought a cold snowflake would counteract our heat wave quite nicely!

To celebrate our 500th Freshly Made Sketches challenge I put together three prize packages of new items for your crafting stash.  Three random commenters on my blog (US addresses only) will receive a prize package with an assortment of stamps, dies, stencils,  and patterned paper from companies such as Papertrey Ink, My Favorite Things, Altenew, Winnie and Walter, Memory Box and more!  The prize packages were randomly assembled so I can't tell you ahead of time what you'll receive, but I'm sure you are going to love it!  

Thanks for stopping by!  Please join us in celebrating our 500th challenge at Freshly Made Sketches and your chance at winning some fantastic prizes!  I hope to see you in the gallery!

Supplies
Stamps:  Tiny Words Christmas (Simon Says Stamp)
Paper:  Solar White (Neenah); Cool Caribbean, Vellum (Stampin' Up!); Watercolor Wash (My Favorite Things); silver glimmer (Recollections)
Ink: Onyx Black (Versafine)
Accessories:  Snowflake Trio die (amuse.studio); Lindemon Snowflake die (Memory Box); Snowfall/Speckles embossing folder (Tim Holtz); silver cord (Stampin' Up!)

Fusion - Crayons

Our new challenge at Fusion is so colorful.  How can it not be with crayons as the design inspiration!  I didn't have any crayons in my stash but I did have some swooshes that I inked up in primary colors.

I changed the orientation of my cardstock but I followed the sketch otherwise.  Instead of crayons I used some linear swooshes that I colored in primary colors.  Super easy!

Thanks for stopping by!  My Fusion teammates have made some fabulous cards for this challenge so be sure to check them out.  Remember, you can play with the sketch, the inspiration, or combine them.  The choice is yours!

Supplies
Stamps:  True Colors (The Alley Way Stamps)
Paper:  Whisper White (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Fresh Lemon, Crimson, Carribbean Sky, Persian Blue (Altenew); Onyx Black (Versafine)  

Freshly Made Sketches 499

Hi friends!  It's Wednesday and time for a new challenge at Freshly Made Sketches.  This week the hostess is yours truly! 😊I opted for my favorite shaped card - a square one.  And feel free to substitute another shape for those triangles in the corner!

I decided that my square card needed to be one layer and when I saw the black and white challenge at Just Us Girls I knew exactly how I wanted this card to look.

This card went together very easily.  I simply stamped the leaf images in the corner in black ink then added a script sentiment in the middle.  Thats. It.  What could be easier than that?  

Thanks for stopping by!  My Freshly Made Sketches teammates have turned my sketch into some beautiful cards so be sure to check them out.  I hope you'll play along with us!

Supplies
Stamps:  Botanical Prints (The Stamp Market); Scripty Sayings (Gina K Designs)
Paper:  White Pure Luxury (Gina K Designs)
Ink:  Nocturne (Versafine Clair)

Addicted to CAS - Guest Designer

Happy Saturday!  I am super excited to being joining the team over at Addicted to CAS once again as their guest designer!  The code word for the challenge is "fishy" and that had me pondering and then some!  Ultimately, I turned to Etsy and the plentiful supply of digital images there to fulfill my fishy quest!

There were actually quite a lot of digital fish images to choose from, which kind of surprised me, until I saw that many were being used as fisherman themes for screen printed t-shirts or vinyl decals on vehicles.  

But there were also some cute fish clearly made for card-making and scrapbooking.  I chose this image because I loved the long swoosh behind her (which I took to be the movement of water but now that I look again maybe it's part of her tail???) and her pursed lips.  I colored her in shades of blue then I then hunted around for some fish-appropriate sentiments and settled on this one that I simply printed on regular paper, cut, mounted to some cardstock for stability and stuck down with foam tape. 

All in all this went together pretty easily!

Thanks for stopping by!  And I owe a huge thanks to Kylie and everyone at Addicted to CAS for liking my cards enough to invite me to play along with them for this challenge.  I can't thank you enough!

Supplies
Stamps:  Pretty Fish (2cuteink)
Paper:  Ultra Smooth Premium White (Spectrum Noir)
Ink:  Copics

Freshly Made Sketches 498

I've got a quick post to share with you using the latest sketch at Freshly Made Sketches.  Our hostess this week is Jen Timko and I know you are going to love her design!

That oval layer initially had me a bit stumped.  And when I am stumped I take a day or two to obsess ponder over possible designs.  When I am really stumped I try and CASE one of my own designs and that is what happened with this card.  As I was driving home from work Tuesday (nothing like cutting it close) I remembered this card that I made and thought with some new stamps and colors I could make a brand new design.

So using the shades of blue theme at Less is More I stamped these gorgeous leafy images and highlighted one of them with the dotted image that I heat-embossed in white.  Easy peasy!

Thanks for stopping by!  My Freshly Made Sketches teammates have got some great cards to inspire you so check them out and play along with us!

Supplies

Stamps:  Dot Botanicals, Leaf Clusters (Altenew)

Paper:  Whisper White (Stampin' Up!)

Ink:  Sea Glass, Dusk, Desert Night (Altenew); Versamark

Accessories:  Pierced Oval STAX (My Favorite Things); Opaque Bright White embossing powder (WOW!)
 

Fusion - Kitty Butterfly

Our new Fusion challenge is an incongruous mix of a butterfly and a cat - along with a sketch, of course.  Being a cat mom, I love cats.  And as a card-maker butterflies are a favorite element I like to use on my cards.  But in real life...never the twain shall meet!  One is an enemy of the other and I'm sure you can guess which is which!

So for my card I chose to create a bit of fusion - using the sketch, the butterfly, and a couple of colors from the inspiration photo.  As you can see I went uber CAS on this one with an all white background.  For the horizontal and vertical rectangles I simply raised up some white cardstock on foam tape.  The butterfly was die cut with a fairly close approximation of two of the colors from the photo and I added a bit of Wink of Stella so that, in real life, it has a bit of shimmer.

Thanks for stopping by!  My fellow Fusion teammates have made some fantastic cards for this challenge so be sure to check them out!

Supplies
Stamps:  Tons of Type (The Stamp Market)
Paper:  Solar White (Neenah); Calypso Coral, Taken With Teal (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Taken With Teal (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories:  Vivienne Butterfly die, Darla Butterfly die (Memory Box)

Freshly Made Sketches 497

Hi friends!  It's Wednesday so that means it's time for a new challenge at Freshly Made Sketches.  This week our hostess and sketch designer is Jacquie.  Her fabulous design has lots of white space to spark your creativity.  I used that white space to break in a new-to-me stencil.

I sat at my desk with a vague idea to sponge on some colors through the stencil and really didn't know how it was going to turn out.  To my delight the colors looked really good together then I got the bright idea to tap my Versarmark pad through the stencil and heat emboss some WOW! Clear Sparkle Embossing Glitter over the leaves.  Let me just say they don't call it WOW! for nothing.  This picture doesn't do it justice, but the shimmer and shine from the embossing glitter turned this from a nice card to a super card!  

Thanks for stopping by!  As always, my Freshly Made Sketches teammates have put together some amazing cards with this sketch so be sure to check them out!

Supplies
Stamps:  Tons of Type (The Stamp Market)
Paper:  Whisper White (Stampin' Up!); Cocoa Bean (Papertrey Ink)
Ink: Brushed Corduroy, Peeled Paint, Shabby Shutters, Wild Honey (Distress Oxide); Cocoa Bean (Papertrey Ink); Versamark
Accessories:  Turning Leaves stencil (Simon Says Stamp); Clear Sparkle Embossing Glitter (WOW!)