Freshly Made Sketches 400 - Week Two

We are at Week 2 of our 400th challenge celebration at Freshly Made Sketches.  And we are still walking down memory lane because this week we have reprised sketch #200 for our challenge.  Take a look:

A CAS classic sketch, don't you think?  I went with some comic book inspired paper for a background and a ka-boom image as a focal point.  I added a "wow" sentiment because it's a bit of a "wow" that we are here at 400 challenges!  I was also inspired by the color challenge at the Paper Players - black, white, and one other color.  As per my usual when I see this color challenge I choose yellow! 

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you can join us for our 400th anniversary challenge at Freshly Made Sketches!

Supplies
Stamps:  Explosion! (Uniko)
Paper:  Solar White (Neenah); Black Licorice (My Favorite Things)
Ink:  Summer Sunrise (Papertrey Ink); Nocturne (Versafine Clair)

CAS(E) This Sketch 318 Meets Fusion

I've got a new card today combining the sketch at CAS(E) This Sketch and the inspiration at Fusion.  Since I don't have anything even remotely resembling a fish in my stash I had to go in another direction and made my card based on the Fusion colors!

Colors like that always seem to put me in mind of super heroes so I used this fabulous super girl as the focal image on my card.  I added some die cut sentiments to the vertical red layer to add some dimension - they say "BAM!" and put the starburst behind my super girl to show she's got some pizzazz!

Our CAS(E) This Sketch is a retro one - all the way back to number 218.  The card I made for that challenge was quite a bit different!  That one was all about white space being white.  My card today shows that "white space" can be any color you want!

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope I'll see you in our CAS(E) This Sketch or Fusion galleries!

Supplies

Stamps:  You're Super (My Favorite Things)

Paper:  Enchanted Evening (Papertrey Ink); Daisy (Avery Elle); Poppy Parade (Stampin' Up!); Solar White (Neenah); X-Press It Blending Card

Accessories:  Bubbles die (Paper Smooches); Pow Zap Bam die (Frantic Stamper); Skinny Mini Banners die (Papertrey Ink)

Freshly Made Sketches 343

Hello people!  We've got a new challenge debuting at Freshly Made Sketches!  Yay!  This week our sketch is designed by the superbly talented Jen Timko.  That big ol' wide open layer has so many possibilities.

There's a fun "girl power" challenge going on at Addicted to CAS so it gave me an excuse to ink up my favorite super girl and this sketch was perfect to make sure she really stands out!  I gave her a white starry background with a stencil and some embossing paste then heat embossed the sentiment.

I was feeling a bit of the #girlpower this weekend because I managed to install a new faucet in my bathroom.  I needed a bit of help from my brother-in-law to drill a hole in the basin but the rest of the job was all me.  After my BIL drilled the hole he said "who's your plumber?"  I said in my most emphatic voice "I am!" 

Thanks for stopping by!  And I hope you can join us at Freshly Made Sketches with your take on our sketch.  We'd love to see you in the gallery!

Supplies
Stamps:  You're Super (My Favorite Things)
Paper:  Solar White (Neenah); Daffodil Delight, Real Red (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Nocturne (Versafine Clair); White (WPlus9); Polychromos pencils
Accessories:  Starry Nights stencil (Memory Box); white embossing paste (Dreamweaver); white embossing powder

Freshly Made Sketches 285

My card for this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge ended up looking a lot different that what I had originally planned.  The sketch is designed by Amy, and it's a very straitforward sketch, but for some reason it threw me for a loop!

My first attempt had a whole lot of yellow in it and was going to be full of flowers.  But after a bit I realized what I was making looked horrible so I scrapped it.  Then I briefly thought about using a butterfly, but I had already used a butterfly on another card I made (which will be posted tomorrow) and I didn't want to use another one.  Then out of the blue I thought of the set of dies I ultimately used, all full of superhero style images and sentiments.

There's a navy, pink, and white color challenge at CAS-ual Fridays and I thought it would be fun to use those colors and make a girly card.  I love how these strong images look in pink accents!  I think it's hard to see in the photo but behind the gingham starburst image is a white cloud die cut.  I embossed it with burlap texture so that it would show up better against the white background - guess it didn't work!

Thanks for stopping by!  And be sure to pop on over to Freshly Made Sketches to check out the cards made by our awesome design team.  I hope you'll join us in the gallery!

Supplies
Stamps:  Amazing (My Favorite Things)
Paper:  Solar White (Neenah); Night of Navy (Stampin' Up!); patterned paper (American Crafts)
Ink:  Night of Navy (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories:  Pow Zap Bam die (Frantic Stamper); Banner Trio die (WPlus9); Rustic Burlap impression plate (Papertrey Ink)

My Hero

There are some fun colors this week at Color Throwdown.  Whenever I see colors like that it makes me think of my super hero stamps!  So I grabbed one of them and sat down to color.

A couple of years ago I made a tag using the female super hero version of this stamp set and it's one of my favorite projects.  I keep it on a shelf around my stamping desk and I took it out for a little inspiration as I contemplated this challenge.  I ended up CASing myself and now I've got a matching set!  And I'll also admit that the tag challenge at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge was a big influence on my design too!

The other day I had a terrible time getting a good photo of a card that I had made so I did a little photography experiment with this tag.  Although I think I've got a decent amount of light on my cards the colors never look quite right when I'm looking at the pictures that I take.  I have no idea what I'm doing wrong and I'm so envious when I look at other blogs and see cards that are photographed so well.  So for this tag I used my phone (which has a very nice camera) and I took the photo from directly above (while the tag was flat on some patterned paper) to see if I would get better results.

Well, the experiment results are that the colors are WAY OFF in this picture!  The red looks like Cherry Cobbler and the blue looks like Baja Breeze but I actually used Real Red and Bashful Blue (which are quite different).  And you can barely see the green that I used on the belt and top of the boots.  I think I'll go back to the old way of taking my pictures :(

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies
Stamps:  Super Boy (My Favorite Things); Super (Paper Smooches); Bright Days (Avery Elle)
Paper:  Real Red, Bashful Blue (Stampin' Up!); White (Catherine Pooler)
Ink:  Daffodil Delight (Stampin' Up!); Jet Black (Altenew); Prismacolor Pencils
Accessories:  Basic Bookmark 2 die (Papertrey Ink); baker's twine

Pow!

We had a wee snow storm here yesterday.  We call it a nor'easter and it came with high winds that blew all that snow around and generally caused all kinds of mess on the roads.  When it was done it dumped about a foot and a half of snow in my yard.  Thankfully, my office closed early and I was able to go home from work and ride out the storm in my stamp room!

There's a hero challenge at CASology which gave me an excuse to use one of my super hero-style stamp sets.  And I recently got some patterned paper that is all comic book themed so I grabbed that and made this card using the sketch from Sketch Saturday.

I love the way this super-girl is standing, arms akimbo, and with a determined look on her face.  She reminds me that girls can do anything!

Well, this girl is headed outside to finish shoveling snow then I'm off to work.  Duty calls!  Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies
Stamps:  You're Super (My Favorite Things)
Paper:  Enchanted Evening, Comic Strip (Papertrey Ink); Daisy (Avery Elle); Whisper White (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Jet Black (Altenew); Enchanted Evening (Papertrey Ink)
Accessories:  You're Super die, Wonky Stitched Rectangle STAX (My Favorite Things)

Freshly Made Sketches 219!

Hello there!  Wednesday is, of course, new sketch day at Freshly Made Sketches.  This week our hostess is Cindy Hall and despite her awesome sketch, I managed to mess up the layout on my card a bit!

I have a bad tendency to not pay close attention to a sketch I'm supposed to be following.  In this case I was all set to use a star shape with a sentiment stamped in it in the spot where the star "any shape" is but changed my mind at the last minute.  I decided to put the sentiment on the lower right corner of the horizontal layer then proceeded to forget all about that star.  It wasn't until the card was photographed and edited that I realized my mistake.  So I polled my fellow FMS teamies and we decided by majority vote that the superhero's head was a good substitute for that shape!  LOL!

I got lucky this week with the superhero challenge at The Friday Mashup because the color block layout of this sketch was perfect for this little superhero guy.  And bonus points for me because I've had this stamp for a while and had never inked it up.

I hope you've got a chance to check out our sketch and all the wonderful inspiration from the Freshly Made Sketches design team.  I hope to see you in the gallery!  Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies
Stamps:  Super Boy (My Favorite Things)
Paper:  Sweet Tooth (My Favorite Things); Real Red, Daffodil Delight, Night of Navy, Whisper White (SU); X-Press It Blending Card
Ink:  Black Licorice (My Favorite Things); Night of Navy (SU); Copics
Accessories:  Stitched Rectangle STAX, Blueprints 13 die (My Favorite Things)

colourQ 293

And we're back!  After a week-long break we are back at colourQ with a new palette of awesome colors.  I decided to go all super-hero with my card this week!

The bold colors got me thinking of this dude and then I stumbled on this layout from Sketch Saturday.  Their challenge was to choose one of their past sketches and as soon as I saw this one I knew it would be perfect for what I already had in mind.

And, of course, I'm playing along with the Paper Smooches Sparks "anything goes" challenge this week.

Our colourQ design team has some beautiful cards to inspire you this week.  I hope to see you in the gallery!  Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Super (Paper Smooches)
Paper:  Basic Black, Hello Honey, Tangerine Tango (SU)
Ink:  White (WPlus9)
Accessories:  Bam Bubbles die (Paper Smooches); Starry Nights stencil (Memory Box); black embossing paste (Wendy Vecchi); white embossing powder

Freshly Made Sketches 182!

Happy Wednesday!  It's time for a new sketch from your friends at Freshly Made Sketches.  This week Rita is our hostess and I love her sketch.  It's absolutely perfect for any ideas you might have swimming around in your head!

I was in a super hero mood again, especially after I saw the latest Cupcake Inspirations challenge :)  so I grabbed this super girl and a bright yellow layer that I had previously embossed with stars.  I colored her up, stuck her in front of an exploding star, layered some fun primary colors and I was done!

There are flowers and balloons and airplanes to be seen at the Freshly Made Sketches blog brought to you by our always amazing design team, so be sure to check them out.  I can't wait to see you in the gallery this week!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:
Stamps:  You're Super (My Favorite Things); Label Love (Altenew)
Paper:  Night of Navy, Daffodil Delight, Real Red, Whisper White (SU); X-Press It Blending Card
Ink:  Night of Navy (SU); Black Licorice (My Favorite Things); Copics
Accessories:  Starry Night stencil (Memory Box); Perfect Polka Dots embossing folder (SU); Bam Bubbles die (Paper Smooches); translucent embossing paste (Dreamweaver)

Freshly Made Sketches 180

Happy Wednesday!  Yay, we're half way through the work week and, of course, that means a brand new sketch at Freshly Made Sketches!  This week the always amazing Jen Timko is our hostess and she's designed an amazing sketch for us!

When I sat at my desk to make my card I had a vague idea to use this super hero guy.  So I stamped him, colored him and hoped for a fabulous idea for the rest of the card.  The rest came much more slowly and had lots of iterations before I settled on this version.

As you can see I took some *ahem* liberties with the sketch but since I got the okay from my Freshly Made Sketches teamies  I forged ahead.  My cityscape takes the place of the horizontal layer and "twine" and with apologies my sentiment is not in the right place.  But I think it's pretty cute and the end result embraces the spirit of the sketch!

I'm also playing along with the Paper Smooches Sparks challenge.  I've never joined them and since this week is "anything goes" and my super dude is a Paper Smooches image I wanted to join in the fun.

The Freshly Made Sketches design team has created some amazing cards for you this week.  Their interpretations of the sketch will get your creative juices flowing for sure.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Super (Paper Smooches)

Paper:  Kraft (Papertrey Ink); Pacific Point, Crushed Curry, Basic Black, Welcome Neighbor (SU); X-Press It Blending Card

Ink:  Black Licorice (My Favorite Things); Onyx Black (Versafine); Copics

Freshly Made Sketches 178

Happy Wednesday everyone.  I hope you all survived the St. Patrick's Day festivities, if you had them!  St. Patrick's Day is a big deal where I live.  There's parades, and parties, and corned beef & cabbage dinners, and drinking, and singing and even a breakfast where local politicians get together and pretend they like each other for a day!  It's all in good fun!

Today we've got a new sketch for you at Freshly Made Sketches designed by Narelle.  She's got such an eye for color and design and she always tries to make a sketch for us that's a little easy on the layers.  I'm sure it kills her to do it, though!

I whipped out my favorite Super Girl for my card and the little ka-pow bubble behind her is pointy like the banner in the sketch and also round-ish like the circle, so it's doing double duty here.  I actually began this card with a bright yellow layer that I embossed with clear paste using a starry stencil.  But I couldn't figure out where to put the sentiment.  Then I found this starburst paper in my stash and knew it was a better choice for a background.

The colors for my card are inspired by the colorful creation that is the inspiration this week at the Muse Challenge.  I started with the bright yellow background then pulled in several other colors as well.

There's lots of fantastic inspiration from your friends at Freshly Made Sketches.  I hope you have time to play along with us this week!  Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  You're Super (My Favorite Things)

Paper:  Soft Sky, Pacific Point, Real Red (SU); X-Press It Blending Card

Ink:  Black Licorice (My Favorite Things); Onyx Black (Versafine); Copics

Accessories:  Bam Bubbles die (Paper Smooches)