Freshly Made Sketches 619

Hi friends!  I've been a bad stamper lately, but I'm back with a card for our newest Freshly Made Sketches challenge.  Our hostess this week is Judy and her card put me in mind of butterflies!

The color challenge at The Paper Players influenced the design of this card.  I used some grungy Stampin' Up! DSP for the black and white background and then used a butterfly as my pop of color.  

Thanks for stopping by!  My fellow Freshly Made Sketches design team members have made some fabulous cards with this challenge so I hope you check them out!

Supplies
Paper:  Black Licorice (My Favorite Things); Tempting Turquoise, Night and Day DSP (Stampin' Up!);  vellum (Papertrey Ink)
Accessories:  Papillons die (4enscrap); Blueprints 15 Die (My Favorite Things)

Freshly Made Sketches 585

So last week I forgot to hit "Publish" so my card for Freshly Made Sketches went unseen.  This week I'm just late. 😉 But I do have a card for our newest challenge with a design from Judy.

I will be totally honest and say that those vertical layers gave me.......pause.  What-to-do what-to-do....  So I opted for my rescue when I'm unsure how to mix layers - vellum.  I dug deep into my stash and found this pretty patterned paper with a butterfly pattern to it then I added the five horizontal vellum layers.  I added a die-cut butterfly to it and called it a day!

The challenge at Addicted to CAS is "monochrome" and I designed this card with that in mind, but I'm not sure it meets their CAS standards.  Apologies to the DT over there if this is over the top!

Thanks for stopping by!  My Freshly Made Sketches design team members have made some fantastic cards with this sketch so I'm sure you will be inspired to play along with us!

Supplies
Paper:  Wild Wasabi, Vellum, Afternoon Tea DSP (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories:  Papillons die (4enscrap)

Freshly Made Sketches 581

Hi all!  We've got a great new challenge for you at Freshly Made Sketches!  Our hostess and sketch designer is Cécile and, as always, when she designs a sketch I try (and usually fail) to channel her amazing design aesthetic.  Here's my humble attempt:

So, since spring has sprung out all over in my neighborhood, I decided to combine the pastel color challenge at The Paper Players with our Freshly Made Sketches challenge.  I used a stencil to create the background and then topped it with this artsy butterfly.  I know I was supposed to add a sentiment, but this looked too darn cute without one, so I left it off!  I hope Cécile forgives me!

Thanks for stopping by!  As always our Freshly Made Sketches design team has some amazing cards to inspire you to play along with us!  I hope to see you in the gallery!

Supplies
Paper:  Solar White (Neenah); Fresh Freesia, Basic Black, Vellum (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Certain Celery (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories:  Pine stencil (The Ton); Papillon die (4enscrap)

Freshly Made Sketches 548

Hi friends!  Our latest sketch challenge from Freshly Made Sketches features a straight, vertical layer.  That got me thinking about a stamp set featuring a line of butterflies.  Butterflies seem to abound lately in some of my favorite challenges so I decided to combine my Freshly Made Sketches card with a couple of them.  Our sketch this week is brought to you by Jacquie.  I love her minimalist design.

I wanted to do something simple with my card so I stamped the line of butterflies in a fun color then added a "layer" by drawing a vertical line down the card, being careful to go around the butterflies.  It's a one layer card and so much fun!  There are butterfly challenges at Just Us Girls as well as Less Is More so I'm adding my card to those challenges too!

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you'll play along with our Freshly Made Sketches challenge!  Our design team will surely inspire you so check out their cards.

Supplies
Stamps:  Butterflies and Moths (Tim Holtz); Tiny Words (Simon Says Stamp)
Paper:  Whisper White (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Simply Chartreuse (Papertrey Ink); Onyx Black (Versafine); Copic Multiliner

Freshly Made Sketches 547

We've got a great new sketch for you at Freshly Made Sketches!  Our hostess this week is Judy and I love her sketch!  Those vertical layers leave much to the imagination!

There were a lot of butterfly challenges around blogland this week so I combined my Freshly Made Sketches card with the tic-tac-toe challenge at The Paper Players (center horizontal) and the butterfly challenge at Allsorts.  I used some ancient DSP in a simple pattern then added an outline butterfly as my "circle"on the sketch.  The butterfly was a bit boring so I jazzed it up with some Wink of Stella.

Thanks for stopping by!  Our Freshly Made Sketches team has created some fabulous cards to inspire you to play along with us, so I hope we'll see you in the gallery!

Supplies
Stamps: Simple Sentiments 02 (Simon Says Stamps)
Paper: White Linen (Essentials by Ellen); Midnight Muse, Sweet Pea DSP (Stampin' Up!); Dark Indigo (Papertrey Ink)
Ink:  Onyx Black (Versafine)
Accessories:  Floral & Flutter dies (Concord & 9th); enamel dots (My Mind's Eye); Wink of Stella 

Freshly Made Sketches 540

Hi everyone!  It's my turn to be the hostess at Freshly Made Sketches and I put together a pretty simple sketch.  I had no particular card design in mind when I created the sketch and once I sat at my desk to make my card I was going to do something faithful to it:  a couple of rectangles and maybe a flower or too.  But after a first attempt I abandoned that idea and went with something else entirely.

For the rectangles I used a brushstroke image and then die cut this beautiful butterfly as an accent.  I was inspired by the colors at Sunday Stamps for this one.  The colors are eclectic and I love it when I can combine colors that, at first glance, don't seem to go together and but look so beautiful when they combine!

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you give my sketch a try at Freshly Made Sketches!  My fellow design team members have made some fabulous cards to inspire you so I hope you'll play along with us!

Supplies
Stamps:  Jumbo Abstract Art (My Favorite Things); Tiny Words (Simon Says Stamp)
Paper:  Whisper White, Summer Starfruit (Stampin' Up!); vellum (Graphix)
Ink:  Wisteria, Hydrangea (Altenew); Onyx Black (Versafine)
Accessories:  Papillons die (4enscrap); enamel dots (Studio Calico)

Fusion - Blue Butterfly

We've got a great new challenge for you at Fusion.  I'm a big lover of butterflies so you would think this challenge would be easy for me, but I'm here to tell you that I made at least three iterations of this card before I decided this was the one!  In the end I opted to create some fusion of my own by combining the butterfly theme with the sketch.

I loved the varying shades of blue and green in the inspiration pic so I sponged some similar colors onto my background.   (The color on the right looks purple but it's called "chipped sapphire" so I promise in real life that it looks blue).  I randomly stamped butterflies onto the background and then I added the big banner die cut in vellum so the colors and butterflies below would show through.  I topped the banner with a couple of die cut butterflies and a sentiment.

Thanks for stopping by!  Check out our Fusion challenge and play along with the sketch the inspiration photo or both!

Supplies
Stamps:  Butterfllies (7Gypsies); Keep It Simple Just a Note (Papertrey Ink)
Paper:  Bristol Smooth; Island Indigo, Whisper White, Vellum (Stampin' Up!); Hawaiian Shores (Papertrey Ink)
Ink:  Chipped Sapphire, Cracked Pistachio, Peacock Feathers (Distress Oxide); Nocturne (Versafine Clair)
Accesories:  Jumbo Fishtail Banner STAX (My Favorite Things); Delaney Butterfly die (Poppystamps)

Freshly Made Sketches 527

We've got a great new sketch for you at Freshly Made Sketches.  Our hostess and sketch designer this week is Judy and I love her sketch!

I used the same colors as I did last week for my FMS card for two reasons:  they are quite lovely together and there was a color challenge going on at another blog using these but I didn't read carefully enough because said challenge is now closed!  Too bad for them because they'll miss out on this beauty!  LOL!

I dug into my Stampin' Up! DSP stash and selected a bright yellow pattern for the vertical strip, chose vellum for the rectangles so they didn't detract from the pretty DSP, and topped them all with lovely butterflies.  I was going to add a vertical sentiment right alongside all that lovely-ness but couldn't find anything that caught my eye so this will remain sentiment bereft.

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to hop on over to Freshly Made Sketches to see what my fellow DT members have cooked up for your viewing pleasure.  Hopefully you will join us in the gallery!

Supplies
Stamps:  Kinda Eclectic (Stampin' Up!)
Paper:  White Linen (Essentials by Ellen); Whisper White, Vellum, Beyond the Garden DSP (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Pacific Point (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories:  Elegant Butterfly punch (Stampin' Up!)

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 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 #478

Alright folks - we've got a great new CAS sketch for you at Freshly Made Sketches.  This week is our hostess is my favorite pilot - and by that I mean CAPTAIN - Jennifer Timko!  👏👏👏

I went with a one-layer card and using the colors from the Sunday Stamps challenge inked up some leafy images along the bottom.  This in turn, was good to play along with the AAA challenge of Along the Edge.  

I added the butterfly at the last minute because I think the card needed a little something to finish it off.  I'm pleased at how it turned out!

Thanks for stopping by!  Please check out our challenge at Freshly Made Sketches and play along with us if you can!

Supplies
Stamps:  Pocket Silhouettes (Stampin' Up!); Beautiful Butterflies (Papertrey Ink)
Paper:  Whisper White (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Bamboo, Parrot (Altenew); Chocolate Chip (Stampin' Up!)

Freshly Made Sketches 477

We've got a new sketch for you at Freshly Made Sketches....and I'm the hostess!  I feel a little bit like a broken record because, once again, my sketch is square (I love those).  But if squares aren't your thing feel free to use a different shape.

The lovely colors at The Paper Players inspired me to use this turnabout stamp from Concord & 9th.  It's gorgeous and gigantic!  Once I've stamped it I can't bring myself to cut off those glorious edges so that it fits into an A2 envelope so I just make proportionately giant cards.  This one is 5 1/2 inches square.  I even dug out my envelope punch board to make an envelope for it! I didn't want to detract from the background too much so the center square on the sketch became a shimmery vellum rectangle on my card to which I added some shimmery letters.  

Thanks so much for stopping by!  As you probably already know my Freshly Made Sketches teammates have made some beautiful cards with my sketch so I hope you are inspired to play along with us!

Supplies

Stamps:  Botanical Turnabout (The Stamp Market); All About You (My Favorite Things)

Paper:  Whisper White, Basic Black (Stampin' Up!); Vellum (Grafix); foil paper (Recollections)

Ink:  Baja Breeze, Wisteria Wonder, Old Olive (Stampin' Up!); Onyx Black (Versafine)

Accessories:  You Trio die (My Favorite Things)

Freshly Made Sketches 476

Hi friends!  It's time for a new challenge at Freshly Made Sketches!  This week our hostess is Linda and I don't mind saying her sketch had me me stumped!

The obvious choice was to layer on some pretty paper in those horizontal lines and finish this with any number of images or shapes for the round part of the sketch.  But I wanted to do something different so I stamped a few images on the diagonal in a couple of shades of soft gray then added the butterfly in blue.  But when I was done I didn't love this at all.  The gray looked green and the butterfly looked too small, so I set it aside and promised myself l'd try something else the next day.

Well sometimes a new perspective is what is needed because when I ventured into my stamp room the next day I decided this didn't look to bad after all.  The "green" had somehow morphed into the gray I was looking for and the butterfly wasn't too small after all.  So I decided to keep the whole thing!

At the Paper Players the challenge is "spring is in the air" and I sincerely hope they are fortune tellers who can foresee the future because I'm SO ready for spring.  My butterfly is a nod to spring.  And in an amazing coincidence my card fits the Retro Rubber tic-tac-toe challenge.  I had already made the card when I checked out the challenge and found the bottom line across fit my card.  My butterfly is punched and the pearls down the back of the blue butterfly add texture (and the stamps are ancient)!

Thanks for stopping by!  Our Freshly Made Sketches design team has got some great cards to inspire you to play along with us!  We hope to see you in the gallery!

Supplies
Stamps:  Rugged Edge (Indigo Blu); Papillon Potpourri (Stampin' Up!); Painted Butterflies (Altenew)
Paper:  Whisper White (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Limestone, Silver Stone, Dusk (Altenew); Onyx Black (Versafine)
Accessories:  Elegant Butterfly punch, Basic Pearls (Stampin' Up!)

Freshly Made Sketches 472

We've got a great new sketch for you at Freshly Made Sketches.  It's an uber clean and simple design brought to you by Narelle.  As much as I'm a clean and simple girl, sometimes all that white space confounds me!  Go figure!

I ended up doing a combination of a sketchy stamp and some washi tape for the two horizontal lines and then added a delicate butterfly and a sentiment.  I'm sure you can't see it in the picture, but the cardstock that I cut the butterfly from has got a lovely shimmer to it.  It's from an old specialty set from Stampin' Up! that I use sparingly because it's so pretty.  Yes, I'm a hoarder!

I chose to do this card in all brown because of the Chocolate challenge at Less is More.  I'm a little unclear about whether I need to use an image of chocolate (as in the edible kind) or whether I can use chocolate colors so I'll let the LIM design team decide whether or not to chuck me from the gallery!

Thanks for stopping by!  Our Freshly Made Sketches design team has interpreted this sketch is fabulous ways!  I'm sure you'll be inspired to play along with us!

Supplies
Stamps:  Easy Expressions Thanks (The Ton); Slash Border (Impression Obsession)
Paper:  Whisper White, Taste of Textiles (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Truffle (Avery Elle); Dark Chocolate (Papertrey Ink)
Accessories:  Delaney Butterfly die (Poppystamps)

CAS(E) This Sketch 376 Meets Fusion

I'm a bit late but today I've actually did get my DT card made for my combination of CAS(E) This Sketch and Fusion!  Work is crazy and sometimes causes what I like to call Pandemic Pandemonium - so every so often it causes me to post my projects a bit late.  I'm so lucky that my fellow DT members put up with my shenanigans!

For this card I went with a circle die that I haven't used in ages - it punches wee circles so I adhered some colored cardstock behind the circles so the color would show through.  Then I added a pretty butterfly and a slim layer on which I stamped my sentiment.  Oops!  The sentiment was supposed to go above that layer.  I need to pay better attention to the sketch :( 

Thanks for stopping by!  My fellow teammies at CAS(E) This Sketch and Fusion have made some fantastic cards so I hope you check them out!

Supplies

Stamps:  A Better You (Clearly Besotted); Simple Sentiments (Avery Elle)

Paper:  Solar White (Neenah); Crumb Cake, Daffodil Delight (Stampin' Up!)

Ink:  Night of Navy, Crumb Cake (Stampin' Up!)

Accessories:  Circles die (Little B)

Freshly Made Sketches 400

Will the real Freshly Made Sketches challenge #400 please stand up!  It seems like we've been playing a sketch challenge version of To Tell the Truth these last few weeks!  After taking a bit of a stroll down memory lane and digging some old sketches out of our archives we are ready to reveal the ACTUAL sketch #400!

It's quite a milestone, to be sure, and to celebrate properly we have PRIZES!  That's right anyone who plays along with us is eligible to win a prize from one of our generous sponsors!  We reached out to our crafty friends and asked if they would help us celebrate our 400th sketch and we were seriously overwhelmed by their generosity.

So let's get to it!

Isn't that a fabulous sketch?  SO. MANY. POSSIBILITIES.  For me, I saw that wide strip and new immediately that I needed to dip into my never-ending stash of patterned paper.  I love gingham so I chose this pretty blue one that was a perfect match to some cardstock that I also had (I love it when different brands collide and make something special)!  Then I added a two-tone butterfly.  It's been a while since I've used one of my pretty butterfly dies and this seemed like just the right occasion to use one of my favorite accents.

I also incorporated a couple of other challenges into my card today.  One for color (The Color Dare) and one that gave me an excuse to use a splatter stamp behind the butterfly (TGIF Challenges).

And now for those sponsors!  Drum roll please...........

Wouldn't you love a chance to win a prize from one of these awesome companies?  It's easy!  All you have to do is play along with our 400th sketch celebration at Freshly Made Sketches.  Winners will be randomly drawn from everyone who plays along!  I hope you'll join us!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies
Stamps:  Simple Sentiments (Avery Elle); Ink Splats (Indigo Blu)
Paper:  Solar White (Neenah); Rose Red, Pink Pirouette, Cool Caribbean (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Cool Caribbean (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories:  Vivienne Butterfly die, Darla Butterfly die (Memory Box)