Mini Card

 Hi and welcome to this week's challenge from the team at Freshly Made Sketches, where our hostess this week is Jen Mitchell.  I love Jen's sketch - so wide open!  I only had a small window of time to make my card as my daughter unexpectedly came to visit for the weekend and, naturally enough, card-making took a back seat.  But here is what I pulled together and thankfully a lot of it was pre-stamped/pre-made.

The pre-made bits on this card were the flowers, leaves and the envelope and insert.  So all I really had to do was stencil the background and die-cut the curved panel which came from a sample pack of Core'dinations cardstock from a recent stamp order.

I'm not sure what colours I used for the flowers as I ink-blended these while I was away from home for 2 weeks last year and didn't keep a record of the colours used.  They will be Altenew inks though.  The stencil is from Stamperia and I wanted to keep with the letter theme and thought this worked quite well.

Thanks so much for visiting.  The design team have some fabulous cards so I hope you'll check them out.

Products used:

Stamps:  Mini Messages & More (MFT)

Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black and various Altenew inks

Cardstock:  White, red (likely MFT), Core'dinations sample pack

Dies:  Floral Spray (Spellbinders), Paper Goods, Stitched Scallop Basic Edges (MFT)

Accessories:  Shabby Rose Stencil (Stamperia), white embossing paste

Cheers

Karren

Magnolia

 Hi and welcome!  Our sketch hostess at Freshly Made Sketches this week is Jennifer Timko and she has given us a classic sketch with lots of options.  A little back story before I post the photo of my card.  I really, really want the new Magnificent Magnolia bundle from Pink Fresh Studio, but I have so many stamps, dies, and stencils I am trying not to buy everything new that I like.  So I went to my stamp inventory, UpNote, and typed in Magnolia.  Do you know I have 6 stamps sets featuring magnolias...?  I chose this one by Altenew because it was layering and meant I didn't have to start colouring from scratch.

After stamping all the layers, I added some extra shading with Copics then die-cut with the co-ordinating die.  For the circle in the background, I used the Window Sphere die which doesn't cut the circle but cuts out all the horizontal strips.  I die-cut it into the card base and then adhered a piece of woodgrain patterned paper behind it.

I popped up the (previously) hot-foiled sentiment and the magnolia with foam tape and added it to the card base.

Thanks for visiting.  The design team have some wonderful cards using the sketch so please head over and check them out.

Products used:

Stamps:  BAF: Magnolia (Altenew)

Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K), Strawberry, Dusty Pink, Blush Rose, Misty Moor, Marshland, Espresso (Altenew)

Cardstock:  White, black, Wood Textures patterned paper (Craft Consortium)

Dies:  BAF: Magnolia, Window Sphere (Altenew), Hexi-Gem Sentiments (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Gold hot foil, Copics

Cheers

Karren

Interlocking CASE

Hi and welcome.  Today I'm playing along in a CASE It blog hop over on Instagram.  I thought I would post here too because this is where I keep the record of all my cards.  But I encourage you to head over to Instagram and check out the other cards in the hop.  The hop starts with Nancy and I am the last stop on the hop. For my case, I have had this card by JJ Bolton saved in my IG for a few years now. Originally I was going to do cardstock strip weaving but my cardstock strips were a little too wide for the cover die I chose, so I ended up doing inlaid die-cutting which took way longer, but I like the result. I also didn't use bright colours like the inspiration card but went with more muted tones.

I did stick with the circle element in the centre but added my die-cut flower to the bottom left rather than the top of the circle.

Here is JJ Bolton's card that inspired me.  I hope you can see the inspiration.  

Thanks for visiting.

Products used:

Stamps: Poppy Wishes (The Ton)

Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Pastel Sunrise, Limestone (Altenew)

Cardstock: White, Eiffel Tower (MFT), Pastel Sunrise (Altenew), Dove (C&9

Dies: Interlocking (Penny Black), Embossed Edge Circle (Kat Scrappiness), Lovely Layers: Mini Holiday Florals (Honey Bee Stamps)

Cheers

Karren

Anenome

 Hi!  Today's sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches was designed by Jacquie Southas and I have to admit I played "Stretch the Sketch" a tad to come up with my card.

I had had this embossing folder for quite some time (at least a year I think) and had never used it.  Then I saw there were co-ordinating stencils, so bought them and when they arrived, I wanted to use them both straight away (go figure!)  I thought that the curves and the leaves at the bottom of the image sort of looked a bit like the sketch so decided to go for it.  I stenciled and embossed the image and then die-cut with the co-ordinating die.  I then partially die-cut the bottom of the die from some white cardstock and dry-embossed that with the Burlap EF before adhering behind the florals.  This makes the image stand out a bit more.

The card base was a panel of Eiffel Tower which was also embossed with the same Burlap folder.  I adhered the image with foam tape and added a pre-foiled sentiment.

Thanks for visiting!  The design team have stuck to the sketch way better than me this week so please head over and check them out.

Products used:

Ink:  Pastel Sunrise, Canyon Clay, Misty Moor, Marshland, Moon Rock (Altenew)

Cardstock:  White, Eiffel Tower (MFT)

Dies:  Fancy Sentiment Strips BetterPress & die (Spellbeinders)

Accessories:  Japanese Anenome Embossing Folder, Die and Stencils (Lisa Horton), Burlap Embossing Folder (Honey Bee Stamps)

Cheers

Karren

All You Need

 I'm back for another year with the Tic-Tac-Toe team and for today's card, I went down the centre with Designer Paper - Red - Free to come up with this card.

The designer paper is from an unknown company as it was a freebie with an order I placed.  I die-cut it with a scallop die and adhered it to a white card base.  I then added some red ribbon and topped that with a stitched ric-rac die-cut.  I then set about finding a sentiment and though this one fit nicely.  I also die-cut some music notes and added them to the card.

Thanks so much for visiting.  I hope you'll head over to the challenge blog and give it a go.

Products used:

Stamps:  All You Need is Love (Taylored Expressions)

Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black

Cardstock:  White, Rouge (Altenew), unknown patterned paper

Dies:  Love Notes (Taylored Expressions), Stitched Scallop Edges, Stitched Ric Rac (MFT)

Accessories:  Red ribbon

Cheers

Karren

Just a Note

Today's card was made using the sketch designed by Judy Rozema over at Freshly Made Sketches.  At first I thought I would do scallop layers but then I remembered this NBUS die and thought it would work okay.  

It was pretty simple to pull this card together.  The die also adds the "lines" on the paper so I cut 3 panels and arranged them onto a Mint card base that had been embossed with the Burlap embossing folder.  The sentiment was stamped onto the same Mint paper and die-cut and I finished with some silver foil die-cut paper clips.

Thanks for visiting.  Please head over and check out the fabulous cards made by the rest of the design team.

Products used:

Stamps:  Take Note (SSS)

Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black

Cardstock:  White, Mint (CTMH), silver foil

Dies:  Take Note (SSS), A2 Ripped Notebook (Picket Fence), Notebook Journal Card (SugarPea Designs)

Accessories:  Burlap EF (Honey Bee Stamps)

Cheers

Karren

 

Sarah's Adventure

 Hi all and welcome to my blog!  Today's card designer for Freshly Made Sketches is Amy O'Neill and I used her sketch to make a rather special card.

My daughter, Sarah, left Christchurch on Monday to start a new life in Blenheim (which is about 4.5 hours drive away).  She got her post-graduate degree last year and is starting her career as a high school teacher in Design & Visual Communications at Marlborough Boys College next week.  So of course, I had to make her a special card.  I'm going to miss her terribly - her and I spent a lot of time together - but I wish her a full and happy future in Blenheim and I now have an excuse to go road-tripping to visit her.

I had bought the Spellbinders Beaded Bracelet products a few months ago and they were the perfect choice to make a fun and positive card for my 22-year old daughter.  I die-cut the hand and heart from white cardstock and ink-blended some colour on.  For the bracelets, I used the BetterPress dies for the letters and numbers and coloured cardstock for the shapes.  The bracelets themselves were cut from silver foil cardstock.

In keeping with the sketch, but slightly deviating, I used frame dies to mimic the layers.  This left a lot of white space allowing the hand and bracelets to be the star of the card.  The sentiment was stamped in black ink.

Thanks so much for visiting.  Please check out the wonderful cards made by the rest of the design team.

Products used:

Stamps:  Bestie Alphabet Beads & Sentiments (Spellbinders)

Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black, Antique Linen, Tattered Rose, Worn Lipstick Distress Inks

Cardstock:  White, Paradise (Hero Arts), Sour Apple, Pink Lemonade, Peach Bellini (MFT), silver foil

Dies:  Bestie Beaded Bracelets, Bestie Alphabet Beads BetterPress, Bestie Heart in Hand (Spellbinders), Fine Frames Cover Die (Altenew)

Cheers

Karren