Freshly Made Sketches 194

Happy Wednesday everyone!  It's time for a new sketch from your friends at Freshly Made Sketches!  This week our hostess is Linda and her sketch made me think of a shaker card.  It seems like every time I see a square on a sketch, I think of shakers!  I've been lucky enough to meet Linda in person twice - the last time was just a couple of weeks ago.  More on that later.

I paper pieced this little party girl's dress and then fussy cut her out.  It's a delicate job cutting this image out because she is so skinny - some of the parts are so small I worry that I'm going to chop off a body part!  But she looks good when it's all done.

At Challenge Up Your Life they are looking for sequins so I filled my shaker up with some colorful ones.

The Freshly Made Sketches design team has made some beauties this week so make sure you head on over there to check them out.  I hope you can join us in the gallery!

I forgot to mention last week that I made a little field trip to Albany New York a couple of Saturday's ago.  My FMS teamie Jen Timko had a layover in Albany and it just so happens that Linda lives about an hour away and I live about 3 1/2 hours away so we all got to see each other for a bit.  It was the second time that I met Linda and the first time that I met Jen.  We had a lot of laughs.  Here we are trying to figure out my new selfie stick!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:
Stamps:  Cheers (My Favorite Things)
Paper:  White (Spectrum Noir); Sea Glass (Avery Elle)
Ink:  Black Licorice (My Favorite Things); Onyx Black (Versafine); Copics
Accessories:  Birthday Bash sequins (Neat & Tangled)

colourQ 261

Hello everyone!  Tuesday's are all about colourQ and this week we've got a fabulous palette for you.  Inspired by this doormat these colors will surely inspire you!

I love Chocolate Chip so I decided to make it a large layer on my card plus it looked good with the Dusty Durango diagonal layer.  I paper pieced a stamped flower out of Island Indigo DSP and thought it looked awfully plain.  So I added a circle punched out of Island Indigo cardstock to the center of the flower.  But that didn't do too much to jazz this up so I put some Crystal Effects on it.  Perfect!

I loved the angles on the sketch at Viva La Verve this week, so I'm playing along with them too!

These colors have inspired some amazing cards from the colourQ design team.  I hope you have a chance to check them out and to play along with us!  We love to see you in the gallery!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Stamps:  Lean on Me, Dream Big (Verve)

Paper:  Classic Ivory (Flourishes); Chocolate Chip, Dusty Durango, Kiwi Kiss, Island Indigo, Vellum, Island Indigo DSP (SU)

Ink:  Frost White (Colorbox); True Black (Papertrey Ink)

Accessories:  Sprightly Sprigs die (Verve); On the Diagonal die (Lil Inker Designs); Witch Hazel button (October Afternoon); Crystal Effects (SU); white embossing powder

BE Inspired 41

TGIF!  Today there are two reasons to celebrate:  my vacation starts at 5:30 tonight and there's a brand new BE Inspired challenge at The Alley Way Stamps blog!

I started thinking about all those dots in the inspiration photo when I sat down to make my card.  So I rooted around in my stash of DSP until I found some polka dotted paper that almost matched the colors in the photo exactly.  I used that to paper piece the coffee mug from Breakfast Club, added the coffee sentiment and a few hearts from tag-alongs and I was done!  The colors for the flags also come from that DSP and the fun layout is the latest sketch challenge at Sunday Stamps.

If you play along with the BE Inspired challenge you can win a free stamp set!  Just use an image from The Alley Way Stamps on your project.  That's it!  And if you don't have any stamps you can find FREEBIE images here!  One lucky person will be hand picked and one person will be randomly chosen.  Both will win a free stamp set!

I hope you have a chance to play along!

Baby Shower and Butterflies

This is my third week being the guest designer at The Alley Way Stamps blog.  I've got a couple of cards to show you.

I'm heading to a baby shower later today and this is the card that I made for the sweet mom and baby-to-be! The cute image is from Spring Has Sprung and I thought it would be adorable for a baby card.  The little felt "buttons" add some lovely, soft texture I think.  I used the layout from retro sketches, but I couldn't bear (pun intended) to cut off the little cutie so he is intact on the right side of the card!

My second card uses the pretty colors at Just Us Girls and features the butterfly from Awesome Blossom.

Well, it's snowing again here.  The baby shower that I'm going to was originally scheduled for last week but was postponed because of the blizzard and now it might be in danger again!  It's coming down pretty heavily now and the wind is howling so I'm not entirely sure that I want to be out driving in this.  I guess I'll have to wait and see how the day goes.  Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

First card stamps:  Spring Has Sprung, Mad Gab (TAWS)

Accessories:  Sweet Pea Stitched Felt, Regal Rose DSP

Second card stamps:  Awesome Blossom, Chatterbox (TAWS)

Accessories:  Wintergreen DSP

CAS(E) This Sketch 5

I've only been on vacation a couple of days and already I'm feeling relaxed!  Usually, the weekend finds me running around trying to do all the things I don't have time for during the week.  But so far I've slept in a bit and haven't felt that same sense of urgency that "I must get things done" before it's time to go back to work.  I could get used to this!

Today I've got a card to show you that I made for CAS(E) This Sketch.  After a short birthday card break, I decided to go back to a Christmas theme.  Tis the season!

In keeping with the CAS spirit, I kept this one really clean and simple!  I stamped the trees onto the Jolly Holiday DSP then layered them on dimensionals over some Cherry Cobbler Baker's Twine that I wrapped around a layer that was scored a couple of times.  Aside from the time it took to cut out the trees, this card went together very quickly!

I'm off shortly to go to the Veteran's Day Parade in my hometown.  My father, as a member of the local VFW, has participated in one way or another in the parade for at least 50 years and although he has officially retired  from his parade duties he will be there this year in a special car with some of his veteran buddies who are not able to walk the route.  It's a special day and I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hand Stamped Sentiments 138 and Unscripted Sketches 179

Since it's World Card Making Day I figured I better dust off my somewhat rusty card making skills and get busy in the craft cave.  It's a long weekend here so I'm hoping that I can get a lot accomplished stamping-wise over the next three days.  I have a hankering to get a head start on some Christmas projects as well as a few Halloween ones.

Today I combined the color challenge at Hand Stamped Sentiments with the sketch at Unscripted Sketches. The colors made me think of a snowman for some reason so I broke out a new-to-me snowman stamp.

I paper pieced the scarf with some Early Espresso DSP from Berry Blossom.  I really wanted an Tangerine Tango scarf, but I don't have any DSP in that color.  Must remedy that...  Once I had the card all assembled it was seriously screaming out for something so I stamped the fun sentiment in Island Indigo, layered it on some cardstock and squished it onto the card where it would fit.  Now that I've had a good look at this there's quite a few things I would change, so I might have to head back to the drawing board!

I hope you have time to celebrate World Card Making Day!  And thanks for stopping by!

Freshly Made Sketches 33

Wednesday is Freshly Made Sketches day and today we've got a sketch designed by me!  I thought that this sketch was actually a pretty good excuse to use up some of those little bits of cardstock and designer paper that always seem to wind up in my stash with no hope of being used!  It seems I've always got long, skinny pieces and short, squatty ones hanging around so I think with this card that I put them to good use.

Now that I see a photo of my card, I wish I done a bit more fiddling with it.  I think a little stitching on the Groovy Guava layer would be nice.  Or maybe some brads.  Not sure, it just seems to be missing something!  Funny how you get a different perspective of a card when you see it on your blog compared to seeing it in person, isn't it?

Anyway, the lovely, earthy designer paper is from Woodland Walk.  I paper pieced the layered flower with a bit of Regal Rose DSP and I did a smidgeon of the rock-and-roll technique on the leaves with some Groovy Guava and Chocolate Chip.  Once again, I've left off a sentiment so that I can customize the card when I need to use it.

May brings a couple of new guest designers to us at Freshly Made Sketches.  This month we are joined by the very talented Erna Logtenberg and Tara Bourgoin.  Be sure to stop on by and show them some stamping love!

And finally, did you see that Freshly Made Sketches is looking for a few guest designers?  That's right!  Click HERE to get all the details.

And don't forget to visit all of the lovely Freshly Made Sketches designers who have made some wonderful cards this week.

Lesley Croghan

Linda Callahan

Cindy Hall

Tui Nathan

Jennifer Timko

Rita Wright

Erna Logtenberg

Tara Bourgoin