Freshly Made Sketches 62

Wow, Wednesday.  Thanksgiving Eve, as it were, to my U.S. friends.  I hope you've got the turkey defrosted because tomorrow I'll bet there's a hungry crowd in your future lining up with forks in hand ready, willing, and able to put away tremendous amounts of food!  But that's tomorrow and today we've got a new sketch for you at Freshly Made Sketches.

This week I am the hostess and I put together a sketch that I thought would be fun to show off layers of patterned paper, ribbon, cardstock or whatever else your imagination can conjure up!

I've been leaning towards a more rustic Christmas theme this year with my cards so I've continued that here with a Crumb Cake card base paired with some burlap ribbon.  I really wanted to participate in the CAS silver and gold challenge at The Paper Players so I cut a couple of snowflakes from the Snow Flurry Bigz die out of the gorgeous Champagne Glimmer Paper.  For a little extra shimmer I twined some gold cord around the burlap.  The sentiment is from More Merry Messages and to add some color I added a red Glimmer Brad in the center of the snowflake and a small strip of Cherry Cobbler cardstock.

The super-fantastic and always amazing Freshly Made Sketches design team has put together some great cards for you to see so head on over there and check them out.  I hope you can join us this week!

colourQ 162

Hello and welcome to another addition of the colourQ color challenge!  This week Arielle has found some great colors inspired by this beautiful wreath.  The first thought I had when I saw this challenge was to reach for one of my many leafy sets.  But I ended up going in a different direction.

I got some wonderful texture on this card from the Argyle embossing folder, rustic burlap ribbon, and Cherry Cobbler baker's twine.  I just added a layered sunflower to complete the look I was going for.  I think it's got a nice homespun feel to it.  The layout is courtesy of retro sketches.

Thanks for stopping by today!  And to all my US friends, don't forget to vote!

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!

Freshly Made Sketches 50

Sometimes it's funny how ideas for making a card come to me.  The other day I went into my stamp room to make my card for this weeks challenge at Freshly Made Sketches.  I was kicking around some ideas in my head when I happened to look down and spotted a small piece burlap ribbon that I got somewhere or another.  It was like a light bulb went off in my head and I knew just how I wanted my card to look!

My card base is Naturals Ivory cardstock which I hardly ever use but discovered matches the Orchard Harvest DSP quite well.  I used some of the Cajun Craze patterned paper as well as the More Mustard checkered paper from that pack.  I love how these colors paired with the burlap make a warm, and somewhat rustic card.  I thought about putting some pretty leaves on this for my focal point, but for the second time that night I looked over and saw my long-forgotten Spice Cake buttons and realized the big More Mustard one tied with some Linen Thread would be perfect!  Who would have thought that twice in one night I would be inspired by just casually looking around my stamp room!  I ought to try that more often!!

I hope you have time to look around your crafting space and see what you can find.  Then put it all together and join us for this sketch challenge.  My friends at Freshly Made Sketches have created some wonderful cards to inspire you, so be sure to stop on by check them out!

Lesley Croghan

Cindy Hall

Tui Nathan

Jennifer Timko

Allisa Chilton

Jen Sannes

Ann Schach

Linda Suarez

Jennifer Brum