Freshly Made Sketches 569

Hi friends!  We've got a new sketch for you today at Freshly Made Sketches!  Our hostess this week is Jacquie and I love how her sketch makes so many designs possible.

My card took many twists and turns this week!  I started out wanting to use a beautiful stenciled flower image, but the image was too big to fit on a landscape oriented card.  I thought about changing it to portrait, but the proportions of the layers would be wrong so I scrapped that idea.  So I went back and increased the scale and found myself with a giant 6 x 6 card.  Still I was not happy so I did what any crafter would do....I slept on it.  

The next day I grabbed this graphic image that's been in my stash for ages, stamped it in black and filled in some of the squares with the colors from the latest Global Design Project challenge.  The slim horizontal layer was just a repeat of those colors in tiny blocks that I glued together.

I have no idea what kind of sentiment I would put on this card, or who I would give it to, but it pleases whatever bit of artistic soul I've got.  😊

Thanks for stopping by!  As you might expect my teammates at Freshly Made Sketches have got some great cards to WOW you with, so be sure to check them out.  I hope we'll see you in the gallery!

Supplies
Stamps:  Arty (KaiserCraft)
Paper:   Whisper White, So Saffron, Cool Caribbean (Stampin' Up!); Lemon Grass (Avery Elle)
Ink:  Nocturne (Versafine Clair); So Saffron (Stampin' Up!); Copics

Fusion - Christmas Chalkboard

Due to some technical difficulties I am ages late in posting my card for our last Fusion challenge.  But at least I made it.  After 9 1/2 years Fusion is ending.  Started by Lesley Croghan and Jackie Rockwell,  and for the last (nearly) six years helmed by the amazing Karren Johnson, Fusion was a great way to mix and match a sketch or an inspiration photo, or both!  It's always sad to see an old favorite challenge end, but the inspiration provided by Fusion is invaluable and I think that sticks with us in our card-making journey well into the future. 

Our last challenge features a chalkboard design and a sketch with a big half-circle on it.  I did a little combination of both on my card.

I opted to go with the sketch and incorporated some of the elements of the inspiration photo.  I had some patterned paper in my stash that was chalkboard-y like so I used that for my background.  The circle ended up being a complete disaster!  I initially wanted to do a shaker with the circle but that involved lining up several circle dies precisely in order to create a blank circle in the center to feature the acetate window and my dancing sequins.  After four, and I do mean four, attempts at lining up the dies and having them shift at the last minute as they were feeding through my die cut machine I gave up and went with a boring white circle with a sentiment stamped on it.  I jazzed it up a bit by stamping some of the words in different colors and popping them up with some foam tape.  Fun!

Thanks for stopping by!  And thanks to everyone who played along with our Fusion challenge over the years.  And a special thanks to Karren who invited me on to the design team and then had to put up with me!

Supplies
Stamps:  Christmas Feeling (Kaiser Craft)
Paper:  Solar White (Neenah); Real Red (Stampin' Up); Heidi Swapp
Ink:  Nocturne (Versafine Clair); Wild Wasabi, Real Red, Baja Breeze (Stampin' Up!)
Accessories:  Circles die (Little B); Festive Mix (Studio Katia)

Freshly Made Sketches 544

Happy Wednesday!  Today we've got a fabulous new sketch for you from Freshly Made Sketches.  Our hostess this week is Karren.  I love me some tilty panels!

I decided to make my card using the colors from the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown challenge.  Red, white, and aqua are one of my favorite color combos for Christmas cards and my little gnome fits those colors perfectly.  Gnomes aren't necessarily Christmas-themed, but when you use them and add a Christmas sentiment they practically become Santa's elves!  

Thanks for stopping by!  It's no surprise that my fellow Freshly Made Sketches design teamies have made some fantastic cards to inspire you to play along with us.  We hope you do!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Holiday Gnomes (Reverse Confetti); Christmas Quotes (Kaisercraft)
Paper:  Solar White (Neenah); X-Pressit Blending Card; Real Red, Shimmery White (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Black Licorice (My Favorite Things); Onyx Black (Versafine)
Accessories:  embellishments (Studio Katia)

CAS(E) This Sketch 314 Meets Fusion

We've got some great new challenges at CAS(E) This Sketch and Fusion and as per my usual I combined them this week.  I ended up with a masculine birthday card...always a tough category for me!

I was inspired by the colors and patterns of the Fusion inspiration and I approximated the shapes of the CAS(E) This Sketch challenge.  I've got triangles!

This is the second iteration of this card because the first one was horrible with a capital H!  I made it over the weekend, uploaded it to the respective design team blogs and then had second and, if I'm being honest, third thoughts.  So I rushed home from work on Monday and went straight into my craft cave to make some modifications.  I hope my fellow design team members didn't see the original!  LOL! 

At Seize the Birthday they are always looking for birthday cards and each week they've got an optional "topping."  This week the topping is dots and stripes.  I'm not sure this qualifies for the topping because my dots are square!  Is there a rule that dots have to be circles?  I'm not sure!

Thanks for stopping by!  My fellow design team members at CAS(E) This Sketch and Fusion have made some GREAT cards to inspire you to play along with us.  I hope to see you one (or both!) of those galleries!

Supplies
Stamps:  Artsy (KaiserCraft); Simple Sentiments (Avery Elle); Sohcahtoa (Altenew)
Paper:  Desert Storm, Solar White (Neenah); Peach Parfait (Stampin' Up!)
Ink:  Nocturne (Versafine Clair); Onyx Black (Versafine)
Accessories:  Modern Christmas die (Clearly Besotted Stamps)

colourQ 252

Our last colourQ palette of July features a bit of Christmas inspired by these delightful hand-made ornaments.  It's the perfect opportunity to use the colors to get ahead on some of your Christmas cards, or like some of my teamies have done, use them in a non-holiday way.  These colors are some of my favorites to use on Christmas cards so I jumped in with both feet and added another card to my Christmas card stash!

The latest Wanna Sketch gave me some ideas for my card, but instead of doing three separate banners I created one big one in burlap which I broke up with a red ribbon banner.  I think it's a fun interpretation of the sketch and lets me add some much-loved texture with this gorgeous burlap ribbon.  

And you may notice that the sentiment is slightly askew.  I blame it on the acrylic stamp that slips and slides on an acrylic block when it encounters even the slightest bit of moisture (read humid stamp room with no AC). This KaiserCraft set is one of my favorite Christmas sentiment sets.  I just don't understand why they make them from acrylic instead of photopolymer.  Acrylic doesn't take ink nearly as well as photopolymer and does the whole slip 'n slide thing, which is really annoying.  {Rant over, back to our regularly scheduled programming}.

Ok, so our always amazing colourQ design team have got some beautiful cards to inspire you.  Hop on over there to check them out.  I hope you can join us in the gallery this week!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Modern Christmas (Clearly Besotted); Christmas Quotes (KaiserCraft)

Paper:  Kraft (Avery Elle); Early Espresso, Whisper White (SU)

Ink:  Certainly Celery, Early Espresso, Real Red (SU)

Accessories:  Real Red Stitched Ribbon (SU); Berry Blend sequins (Avery Elle); burlap ribbon

Thanks a Million

May the 4th be with you.  * Sorry, couldn't resist *

On to the card.  I was working on this card for a long time in my head yesterday afternoon as I ran errands and did some housework, so you'd think that it would have come together in a snap when I finally got in my stamp room.  Not so...

I've got a rare three-fer here since I made this for the sketch at CAS(E) This Sketch, the colors at Pals Paper Arts and the grunge challenge at Addicted to CAS.  I didn't like how I had the grungy images arranged on the first card I made.  So I grabbed another piece of card stock, but this time around the background images were too dark and the sentiment got lost.  Finally I remembered to stamp off, arranged the images "just so" and sure enough the third time was a charm and I got a card I liked!  By the time I had put it together it was late, my eyes were droopy and I put it aside to photograph and post today.

The sun is shining and I've opened all the windows (finally) to let some beautiful fresh air inside!  My kitties are going nuts running from window to window since they pretty much haven't smelled fresh air since I took them to the vet last November!  Poor things!  My new rolling garden seat arrived and I think I'll put it together so that I can work outside without  killing my back.  I peeked inside the box and there's about a million pieces in there so I hope I can put it together before winter sets in.  :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Sketchy (KaiserCraft); Textures 2 (Florileges Design); Funky Florals (Papertrey Ink); The Big, the Bold and You (Winnie & Walter)

Paper:  Classic White (Flourishes); Solar White (Neenah); Kraft (Avery Elle); Whisper White (SU)

Ink:  Crumb Cake, Bermuda Bay (SU); Pure Poppy (Papertrey Ink); Pitch Black (Adirondack)

Accessories:  Notable Cute enamel dots (My Mind's Eye); washi tape

Freshly Made Sketches 131

Happy Wednesday!  This week at Freshly Made Sketches Cindy Hall is our hostess and she has designed a fun and versatile sketch.  Cindy is a stamping hero of mine because not only does she create beautiful cards for ladies but also effortlessly creates jaw-droppingly fabbo cards for men!  I find those in particular to be so difficult to make but she makes it looks so easy!  So if ever you need some inspiration for that oh-so-difficult man-card, just pop on over to Cindy's blog and she'll fix you right up!  Now on to today's card and sketch!

This is actually the second card I made for this sketch.  The first one was winning the "what was I thinking award" before I came to my senses and scrapped it.  Once I threw the ugly pieces out I had an epiphany and grabbed this pretty sunflower die, realizing it needed to be the focal point of my card.  I had a tough time deciding how to do the horizontal layer before I got creative and used a grungy PTI stamp to simulate it.  And since it's been ages since I used my favorite "math" washi tape I stuck a little bit of that down too.

Our always amazing Freshly Made Sketches design team will knock your socks off with their cards this week so be sure to head on over to check them out.  I hope we'll see you in the gallery!  Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Sketchy (KaiserCraft); Watercolor Wonder (Papertrey Ink)

Paper:  Solar White (Neenah); Crumb Cake, Summer Starfruit (SU); Black Licorice (My Favorite Things)

Ink:  Pool Party (SU); Onyx Black (Versafine)

Accessories:  Sunflower die (My Favorite Things); Crumb Cake button (SU); jute twine; math washi tape

Freshly Made Sketches 130

Hello everyone!  We are halfway through the work-week and thank goodness for that!  Work has been crazy and I'm especially grateful when I can come home and escape to my stamp room.  Nothing like playing around with paper and ink to soothe the soul.  Today, of course, is the sketch reveal at Freshly Made Sketches and this week our sketch is designed by the incomparable Linda Callahan.

t occurred to me that it had been a while since I made a Christmas card.  And since one of  my resolutions for the new year was to make Christmas cards regularly throughout the year I figured I better hop to.  The inspiration at Festive Friday was right up my alley for this resolution.  There's lots of white, a bit of brown and green, and some beautiful natural twine.  These colors inspired my card where I used a die cut pine bough and some burlap and jute twine.

As always, the Freshly Made Sketches design team has created some awesome cards this week so make sure you head on over there to check them out.  Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Christmas Quotes (KaiserCraft); Distressed Grid (Creative Embellishments)

Ink:  Crumb Cake, Early Espresso (SU)

Paper:  Kraft (Avery Elle); Chocolate Chip, Garden Green, Whisper White (SU)

Accessories:  Pine Branch die (Impression Obsession); Kraft vintage button (PTI); Chocolate Iridescent sequins (Ellen Hutson); jute twine, burlap

colourQ 217

Hi everyone!  Are you ready for a new palette from colourQ?  I love this one because it's got two of my favorite colors:  Kiwi Kiss and Early Espresso!

I dug into my never-ending, somehow mysteriously multiplying DSP stash and found this Kiwi Kiss paper to use as a background for the tag.  Then I stamped this subway style sentiment (they're so popular right now and I love them) and surrounded it by some sweet colorful flowers.  I'm also playing along with the sketch at Fab Friday.  I took a little liberty and flipped the sketch, so I hope that's okay with the folks over there!

The colourQ team have created some beauties this week so you should definitely check them out!  And thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Flower Fusion #9 (Papertrey Ink); Confidence (KaiserCraft)

Paper:  Early Espresso, Kiwi Kiss, Whisper White (SU)

Ink:  Tangerine Tango, Tempting Turquoise, Early Espresso (SU)

Accessories:  Tag Sale #5 die (Papertrey Ink); Early Espresso baker's twine (SU); Iridescent Chocolate sequins (Ellen Hutson); white seam binding ribbon

colourQ 198

I'm not ashamed to say that this week's color palette at colourQ had me stumped!  When I first saw them I knew right away that they were a gorgeous combination, but when I sat at my stamping table and pondered what to do with them I came up empty.

My first card was made using some floral images.  That quickly went in the scrap heap when I couldn't get that to work.  Then I thought these colors might make an unusual Christmas card.  That evolved into a snowman card idea and I actually had that one made, photographed and ready to post before I admitted to myself that I hated it.  So with the clock steadily ticking I thought about what I liked about this image and realized it was the simple, graphic shapes.  So that lead me to this card.

   

I feel like I seriously cheated with this card.  I love the stamp but all I did was stamp it in Smoky Slate and filled in some of the squares with the colors of the challenge.  I hunted around my stamp room for a sentiment that did this cool, graphic image justice but couldn't come up with anything.  Arielle gave me some ideas, but I just don't have anything edgy enough so it will stay like this until I go stamp shopping again!  

Thanks for stopping by!  And don't forget to hop on over to colourQ and check out the inspiration from the design team, who clearly didn't have the same trouble I did with these colors!  Then ink up and join us because I can't wait to see what you create!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Arty (KaiserCraft)