Freshly Made Sketches 622

It's my turn to be the hostess at Freshly Made Sketches and the sketch I made was pretty straight forward I thought.  And then as I thought about what my own card might look like I got the idea to do a slimline.  The proportions are a little off, but I think you can see the sketch there.

I used stencils to create these gorgeous floral images.  I love using layering stencils because they provide an super simple way to create dimension.  For the horizontal layer I used a piece of vellum and added a gold-foiled sentiment.  The sentiment is hard to see so I included a close-up so you can see it better.

Thanks for stopping by!  My Freshly Made Sketches teammates have made some amazing cards with this sketch so be sure to check them out!  

Supplies
Stamps: Miss Your Smile (Pink Fresh Studio)
Paper:  Pure Luxury (Gina K); Certainly Celery, Basic Black (Stampin' Up!); vellum (Papertrey Ink)
Ink: Sea Glass, Dusk, Frayed Leaf, Forest Glades (Stampin' Up)! Nocturne (Versafine Clair)
Accessories:  Superscript Thank you hot foil plate + die (The Stamp Market); Scallop Border dies (The Stamps of Life)

Freshly Made Sketches 609

At Freshly Made Sketches this week our sketch is designed by Judy and we are joined by a new guest designer, Donna Mikasa, who was one of our 600th sketch challenge winners!  Check out the fun sketch!

The proportions of my card is a little off from the sketch 😬 but this card was born out of the scrap heap!  I had this panel with the pinecones hanging around on my desk for a while.  I had made it for a card that ended up not being made (!) and thought it might work nicely for this sketch.  I wanted the background to be bold so I used a dark indigo for the card base and layered on some nice tartan paper too.  There are lots of gold accents too!

Thanks for stopping by!  Of course, the Freshly Made Sketches design team has some fabbo cards to share with you, so I hope you check them out!

Supplies
Stamps:  Stained Glass Greetings (Simon Says Stamp)
Paper:  Dark Indigo (Papertrey Ink); Gold Foil, Whisper White, Wrapped in Plaid DSP, Champagne Glimmer (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Dark Indigo (Papertrey Ink)
Accessories:  Classic Pine stencil (Altenew); Peace Jotted Script die (Memory Box)

Freshly Made Sketches 582

Oh boy, am I ever late to share my card for our newest challenge at Freshly Made Sketches.  Special thanks to my design teammates for being so patient with me this week.  The work-life balance thing is way out of whack, but I'm glad I was able to finally put my card together.  Our hostess this week is Karren and her sketch gave me license to play with "round" flowers!

I thought the bold colors at the Sunday Stamps Challenge would work really well with this sketch so I grabbed some big floral stamps and went to work.   The two flowers represent the circles on the sketch - - don't you think?!?!?

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies
Stamps:  Floral Art (Altenew); Keep It Simple Mother (Papertrey Ink)
Paper: Pacific Point, Whisper White (Stampin' Up!
Ink:  Pinkalicious, Rubellite, Forest Glades (Altenew); Nocturne (Versafine Clair)
Accessories:  Enamel dots (Doodlebug Designs)

Stencil Thanks

So, I think I am in love with layering stencils.  I've only got a couple but I made a card today using the colors from CAS Colours & Sketches and a stencil from The Ton and I love how it came out!

Layering the stencils was so easy to do and the end result is so pretty!  💕

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies
Stamps:  Thank You Builder (Altenew)
Paper:  Whisper White, Early Espresso (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Stormy Sea (Papertrey Ink); Early Espresso, Old Olive (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories:  Climbing Cosmos Layering Stencil (The Ton); Blueprints 15 die (My Favorite Things)

Fusion - Autumn Leaves

My calendar says "autumn" but the weather says "I don't want summer to end!"  It's been lovely here and although I don't want to admit that summer is over, I know that the leaves will be changing soon.  As luck would have it, our challenge at Fusion embraces those autumn-colored leaves  so I jumped on the bandwagon1

I combined these gorgeous Fusion colors with the sketch at The Paper Players.  I stamped a bunch of leaves in these beautiful colors and arranged then haphazardly horizontally to mimic the sketch.  Then I added a simple sentiment at the bottom.

Thanks for stopping by!  Remember at Fusion you can use the sketch, the inspiration, or both! It's up to you!

Supplies
Stamps:  Leaf Prints (Papertrey Ink); Always There (Altenew)
Paper:  Pool Party, Calypso Coral, Whisper White (Stampin' Up!); Ocean Tides (Papertrey Ink)
Ink:  Pumpkin Pie (Stampin' Up!); Honey Drizzle, Burnt Red (Altenew); Ocean Tides (Papertrey Ink); Nocturne (Versafine Clair)
Accessories:  enamel dots (Freckled Fawn)

Freshly Made Sketches 554

We've got a great new challenge for you at Freshly Made Sketches this week.  Our design this week is brought to you by Karren.  I decided to go with a monochrome one-layer card.  

I thought combining the black and white challenge at Less is More with our Freshly Made Sketches challenge would be a good idea.  I think I was right!  The flower on my card becomes the vertical layer and I drew a rectangle around the sentiment to create the horizontal layer.  The result was a simple, one layer card.

Thanks for stopping by!  My Freshly Made Sketches have some fabulous cards for you to see so I hope you check them out!

Supplies
Paper:  Whisper White (Stampin' Up!
Stamps:  Foral Art (Altenew); Deepest Sympathy (My Favorite Things)
Ink: Onyx Black (Versafine)

Freshly Made Sketches 546

We've got a great new sketch for you this week at Freshly Made Sketches!  Our hostess this week is Amy and she's cooked up a great sketch for you.  I can see lots of fun interpretations with this one.

The photo challenge at Just Us Girls provided some additional inspiration for this sketch.  The color of those falling leaves got me reaching for this leafy image which I stamped in a couple of shades of green.  I then popped up the middle part of the stamp with a circle die cut and finished off the circles on the sketch by stamping a couple of actual circles northwest and southeast of the middle one.  Follow me for more geography lessons!  😂

Thanks for stopping by!  My Freshly Made Sketches teammies have made some fantastic cards which will, for sure, inspire you to play along with us!  

Supplies
Stamps:  Dot Botanicals (Altenew); Simple Shapes (Stampin' Up!); Simple Sentiments (Avery Elle)
Paper:  Whisper White (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Minty Mint, Sweet Leaf (Altenew); Nocturne (Versafine Clair)
Accessories:  Circles die (Little B); Shamrock jewels (Pretty Pink Posh)

Freshly Made Sktetches #542

Hi friends!  It's Wednesday so that means we've got a great new sketch for you at Freshly Made Sketches.  My brain is obviously fried because I completely forgot to schedule my blog post for this morning when the sketch went live.  But here I finally am.  Our design this week is courtesy of Kim and it's got classic lines that I love.

I'm not sure why but whenever I reach for this particular stamp set I always want to stamp the leaves in black.  No idea why.  They could easily be green - the logical choice, after all - but I always seem to gravitate toward black.  So when I chose a favorite yellow gingham for the horizontal layer I knew this set with its black leaves would be perfect.  The contrast of yellow and black is a favorite of mine!  I added a bit of color by coloring the flower in shades of pale purple.  A simple sentiment finishes this off perfectly.

Thanks for stopping by!  My Freshly Made Sketches teammates have some fabulous cards to share with you so I hope you check them out.  I hope you'll join us in the gallery!

Supplies
Stamps:  Wallpaper Art (Altenew); Happiest Birthday Wishes (Stampin' Up!)
Paper:  Solar White (Neenah); X-Press It Blending Card; Basic Black, Daffodil Delight (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Black Licorice (My Favorite Things); Onyx Black (Versafine); Copics
Accessories:  Large Stitched Rectangle Die (Lawn Fawn)

Fusion - Rainbow Plates

We've got another great challenge for you at Fusion.  The inspiration photo features "rainbow plates" but since I made a rainbow card yesterday I decided to follow the sketch this time around.

Ok, work with me here.  I know the sketch has a couple of circles but I opted for a bit of creative license on my card.  The top of the sketch has a partial circle.  On my card that became a leaf that has a circular shape.  The other circle on the sketch became a flower on my card.  Ta da!  My colors were inspired by the colors of the Global Design Project.

Thanks for stopping by!  My fellow Fusion teammates have made some great cards to inspire you to create along with us so be sure to check them out!

Supplies
Stamps:  Strength Blooms (Altenew); Simple Sentiments 02 (Simon Says Stamps)
Paper:  Whisper White (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Forest Glades, Rose Quartz, Puffy Heart, Purple Wine, Cosmic Berry (Altenew); Onyx Black (Versafine)
Accessories:  Bricked embossing folder (Tim Holtz)

Fusion - At the Movies

Hi all!  I'm a bit late to share my Fusion card with you but here we go!  The theme is at the movies, but it was the sketch and the colors from the photo that caught my eye.  The red couch prompted me to incorporate red in my card and the movie theme got me digging around in my stash for this film strip stamp.

I stamped the flowers on this card first then stamped the film strip over them.  I was not happy with how it looked so I stamped the flowers again on some vellum, added some clear embossing powder over those images (a trick I learned because ink and vellum = wet) and then fussy cut the flowers.  I placed them over the original stamped images and I liked this so much better! 

Thanks for stopping by!  Our Fusion challenge is going on now.  You can play with the sketch, the inspiration photo, or combine the two.  It's your choice!

Supplies
Stamps:  Film Strip I (Creative Embellishments); Zig Zag Floral (Altenew); Celebration of Thanks (Verve)
Paper:  Whisper White (Stampin' Up!); Vellum (Graphix)
Ink:  Crimson (Altenew); Nocturne (Versafine Clair); Onyx Black (Versafine)
Accessories:  clear embossing powder

Freshly Made Sketches 525

Hi all!  It's time for a new challenge at Freshly Made Sketches!  Our hostess this week is Karren and her design had me thinking and re-thinking my card.  Sometimes big blank spaces provide so much inspiration I don't know where I want to go!  I finally settled on a design featuring some eclectic colors and a leafy design.

The colors at Color Throwdown were interesting to me and I decided to use them to stamp leaves in a random pattern.  I added a script sentiment in black and I was done!  What started out as complicated ended up being super simple!

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

Supplies
Stamps:  Leaf Clusters (Altenew); Just Saying (Wow!)
Paper:  Whisper White, Tempting Turquoise (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Rocky Shores, Bamboo, Orange Cream (Altenew); Tempting Turquoise (Stampin' Up!)

Freshly Made Sketches 522

Hi stamping friends!  We've got a great new sketch for you at Freshly Made Sketches.  This week our hostess is Kim and she's given us a perfectly classic sketch that has so many possibilities.  Here's what I did with it!

There are lots of valentine challenges around so I was inspired to combine my Freshly Made Sketches card with a few of them.  Instead of a square and circle as per the sketch I opted for a couple of hearts.  The bigger one I stamped with a script background stamp to differentiate it from the smaller one since they were the same color.  I then added a label-style sentiment in contrasting black.  Here are all the other challenges that helped to inspire this card:  Cupcake Inspiration, Color Hues, and Addicted to CAS.

Thanks for stopping by!  My Freshly Made Sketches teammates have made some fantastic cards with this sketch so be sure to check them out!  I hope you'll join us in the gallery!

Supplies
Stamps:  Script (Indigo Blu); Label Love (Altenew)
Paper:  Whisper White, Real Red, Basic Black (Stampin' Up!); All My Heart (Elle's Studio)
Ink:  Onyx Black (Versafine)
Accessories:  Linen & Canvas impression plate (Papertrey Ink)

Freshly Made Sketches 508

Hi friends!  We've got a fabulous new sketch for you at Freshly Made Sketches this week.  Our hostess is Jacquie and there's so much you can do with her design!

The background on this card is wide washi tape.  It's a bit hard to work with but super pretty in real life.  After I added it to the background I stuck a piece of it to a scrap piece of cardstock and fussy cut a couple of the flowers and leaves to add some interest to the top layer of the card.

I'm late posting my card for the challenge because I completely messed it up!  Usually I make my card on Sunday so that I have a couple of days to tweak, photograph, and edit before I do my blog post.  This week I was under a time crunch because I had a work meeting on Tuesday that meant I wasn't going to get home until very late so I wanted to have the card done and posted on my blog by Monday.  

So, the card was done on Sunday and I start composing my blog post on Monday when I realized that I forgot one layer on the card.  I had no time to make a revision so I thought I'd be out for the week.  But it bugged me that I had made such a stupid mistake so on Wednesday night I peeled off the flowers and sentiment from the "wrong" card, added the missing layer, and added the flowers and sentiment back again so that the card followed the sketch.  Whew!

I am 100% sure that my Freshly Made Sketches teammates didn't have trouble like this with their own cards!  I hope you can check out our challenge and join us!

Supplies
Stamps:  Mix & Match Everyday Sentiments (Concord & 9th)
Paper:  Whisper White (Stampin' Up!); Raspberry (Avery Elle); Smoky Shadow (Papertrey Ink)
Ink:  Smoky Shadow (Papertrey Ink)
Accessories:  Calming Bouquet washi tape (Altenew); Subtle Dynamic embossing folder (Stampin' Up!)

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!)
 

Freshly Made Sketches 493

I've apparently got Christmas on my mind because for the second sketch in a row at Freshly Made Sketches I incorporated another Christmas theme.  Our hostess is Karren and she's given us a great sketch that I broadly interpretated.  😉

In the interest of full disclosure I ask that you don't look too closely at the birch tree on the left!  This is the first time I used this layered stamp set and they are long and a bit unwieldy when trying to use a stamp positioner to get good placement.  I was doing ok until I got to the final stamp when it came out a bit off to the left.  Ugh.  So I put it aside and attempted the layout all over again.  BUT I DID IT AGAIN!!!  Version number one looked better than version number two so that's what I went with and covered up the worst of my transgressions with the sentiment and a sweet cardinal.

My fellow Freshly Made Sketches teammates had no such problems with their cards so be sure to check them out!  I hope you can join us in the gallery!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies
Stamps:  Birch Impressionism (Altenew); Joy (The Stamp Market)
Paper:  Whisper White, Real Red (Stampin' Up!); Smokey Shadow (Papertrey Ink)
Ink:  Limestone, Silver Stone, Industrial Diamonds, Pure Graphite (Altenew); Onyx Black (Versafine)
Accessories:  Forest Majesty die (Whimy Stamps); Branch punch (Martha Stewart)

Freshly Made Sketches 486

Hi there!  Today we've got a great clean and simple sketch for you at Freshly Made Sketches.  Our hostess is Jacquie and she put a big ol' white space on the sketch which will surely spark your imagination!

As I was pondering what I was going to do with that curved element I came across a stencil that was tailor made for this sketch.  How awesome is that!  I masked off the bigger portion of the card base with a curved piece of scrap paper and applied white embossing paste through the stencil to create a raised design.  It came out perfectly!  Then I stamped a little splatter and topped it with this beautiful die cut butterfly.  I also stamped some script onto the orange layer of the butterfly because it just made it a tiny bit more interesting.

I was also inspired by the "bug" challenge at Addicted to CAS and the colors at Sunday Stamps.  I suppose a butterfly is technically a bug, but they are too delicate and beautiful to be a bad bug!

Thanks for stopping by!  My fellow teammates at Freshly Made Sketches have made some great cards with this sketch so be sure to check them out!

Supplies
Stamps:  French Script (Stamin' Up!); Always There (Altenew); Mini 72 (PaperArtsy)
Paper:  Solar White (Neenah); Calypso Coral (Stampin' Up!); Raspberry Fizz, Smokey Shadow (Papertrey Ink)
Ink:  Calypso Coral (Stampin' Up!); Smokey Shadow (Papertrey Ink)
Accessories:  Modern Radio Waves stencil, Vivienne Butterfly die, Darla Butterfly die (Memory Box); white embossing paste (Dreamweaver)

Freshly Made Sketches 484

We've got a great new challenge for you at Freshly Made Sketches!  This week our hostess is Amy and her sketch got me thinking about negative space.  Take a look!

Using the colors from Crazy 4 Challenges I stamped the leaves on  two pieces of cardstock then cut out a square from one of those with the intention of layering it over the other.  The negative space it created became the square on the sketch.  I added a slim sentiment I was done!

Thanks for stopping by! My friends at Freshly Made Sketches have made some amazing cards with this sketch so be sure to check them out!

Supplies
Stamps:  Dot Botanicals (Altenew); Tons of Type (The  Stamp Market)
Paper:  Night of Navy, Whisper White (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Bamboo (Altenew); Tempting Turquoise, Night of Navy (Stampin' Up!)

Freshly Made Sketches 483

Hi all!  We've got a great new sketch for you at Freshly Made Sketches designed by Narelle.  It's one of my favorite themes because it's got a grungy background, which in my book means you can just about anything to complement it and it will look fabulous!

I stayed pretty faithful to the sketch and incorporated a circle, some splatters, a flower and leaves on my card all done in the colors of the Color Hues challenge.  I love those colors!

Thanks for stopping by!  My fellow teammates at Freshly Made Sketches have made some amazing cards with this sketch so I am sure you will be inspired to play along with us!

Supplies
Stamps:  Bokeh Dots (Essentials by Ellen); Mini 72 (Paper Artsy); Petite Posies (Technique Tuesday); Leaf Clusters (Altenew); Tons of Type (The Stamp Market)
Paper:  Whisper White (Stampin' Up!)
Ink: Smoky Slate (Stampin' Up!); Citrus Burst (Altenew)