Thursday 25 January 2024

Leafy Drops

 Hi and welcome!  Jacquie Southas is our sketch hostess this week over at Freshly Made Sketches and she has a great, versatile sketch for us.  I wasn't feeling creative when I went into my craft room to create my card and couldn't decide what I wanted to do, but saw an unused background stamp in my NBUS box and that was the start I needed to make this card.


I gold heat-embossed the Overlapping Drops background stamp onto both black and white cardstock to see which I liked better.  I decided to go with the black for a more dramatic look.  From there I die-cut a circle as well as two smaller circles from gold matte foil cardstock.  The leaf was already made and had been treated with some foundry wax so worked well with the gold theme of the card.


I finished with an already-foiled sentiment and some gold pearls.  

Thanks for visiting.  The design team have some fabulous cards so please head over and check them out.




Products used:

Stamps:  Overlapping Drops (SSS)
Ink:  Versamark
Cardstock:  White, Black, Gold Matte Foil
Dies:  Embossed Edge Circles (Kat Scrappiness), Hexi-Gem Sentiments (Spellbinders), Fall Leaves (Waffle Flower)
Accessories:  Gilded EP (Brutus Monroe), Foundry Wax (Tim Holtz), Gold Hot Foil, Autumn Pearl Stickers (Honey Bee Stamps)

Cheers
Karren

Friday 19 January 2024

Love Ya

Hi and welcome!  We're back with our first challenge of the year over at Tic-Tac-Toe and I chose to use the diagonal bottom left to top right option of Punch or Die-cut/Patterned Paper/Pink to come up with this card.


I chose three shades of pink cardstock plus two grays (with the lighter gray being patterned paper) which I got from Colour Cube palette #241 for anyone interested.  I layered patterned paper down both sides of the white card base and also used it to cut the top layer of the sentiment.  After stacking the sentiment three high, I added it to a dark gray shadow and set it aside.  


I then arranged the heart and the sentiment onto a white vertical panel and attached it to the card base with foam tape.



Thanks for visiting.  I hope you'll play along - the challenges are now running for 2 weeks giving you more time to join in.

Products used:

Cardstock:  White, Gravel Gray, Pink Lemonade, Cotton Candy, Ripe Raspberry (MFT), Ink Drops - Monochroms (Craft Consortium)
Dies:  Caprice Heart (Birch Press), Love Ya (MFT)

Cheers
Karren

 

Thursday 18 January 2024

Teal Flowers

Hi and welcome!  Today's sketch from Freshly Made Sketches was designed by Judy Rozema and is a classic!

I made my card using die-cuts from a previous session as well as a colour combo from the Colour Cubes. 

 

I saved a heap of time by designing my card in advance in my Trinity Stamps Cardmaking Sketchbook, so it was a reasonably simple matter to put it all together.  The background panel was stamped with the sentiment then run through my die-cutting machine with the Lumber embossing folder.  The teal square was die-cut with an embossed edge square die to give it added texture and then I arranged the flowers.



It's hard to make out in the photo, but the mat around the square as well as the strip down the right side of the vertical panel is silver matte foil, which adds a lovely elegance.



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

Products used:

Stamps:  Bitty Birthday Wishes (MFT)
Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black, Eucalyptus, Jade, Pastel Sunrise, Coral Bliss, Vanilla Cream (Altenew)
Cardstock:  White, Black, Coral Crush, Peach Bellini, In the Buff, Caribbean Sea (MFT), Sage (Spellbinders), Ocean Tides (PTI), Adriatic (Hero Arts), Silver Matte Foil
Dies:  Be Bold Blooms (Spellbinders), Embossed Edge Squares (Kat Scrappiness)
Accessories:  Lumber EF (Tim Holtz)

Cheers
Karren


Thursday 11 January 2024

Create Happiness

Hi and welcome!  Today's Freshly Made Sketch was designed by Cecile Ribon and I have to admit I went a big rogue and miniaturised and re-layered the sketch to make my card.

 

My original thought when I saw the sketch was to use washi for the strips, but then I had the idea of these miniature dies from MFT.  I was going to use the Copic markers dies for the strips but then couldn't work out the "leaves" from the sketch.  So I went with the paint brush, tubes and palette which sort of matches the sketch but in miniature plus the strips are on top.

I purchased the Colour Cubes last week and while I'm still waiting on the physical product I do have the PDF and I used that to come up with my colour scheme.  It's refreshing to step outside my normal colours for a change! For anyone interested, I used colour palette 098 for this card.


Everything except the silver foil elements was cut from white cardstock and coloured/shaded with Copic markers.  Once it was assembled I arranged the elements to as closely match the sketch as possible.  Because everything was so much smaller than the sketch, I added a layer of cardstock behind the elements onto which I stamped the sentiment.

I finished with some pearls and a clay heart.  Thanks so much for visiting.  Please check out the fabulous cards made by the rest of the design team.






Products used:

Stamps:  Crafty Life (Altenew)
Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black
Cardstock:  White, Ballet Slippers (C+9), silver matte foil cardstock
Dies:  Just Add Paint, Stitched Rectangle Stax (MFT)
Accessories:  Copics, Seafoam Pearls (Pretty Pink Posh), white clay heart

Cheers
Karren


Thursday 4 January 2024

Trio of Flowers

Hi!  The Freshly Made Sketches team is back for another year and our first sketch hostess of the year is Narelle Farrugia.

I had been playing with the Be Bold Blooms dies, making up several flowers so it was quite convenient to use some with the sketch. 


I die-cut embossed squares in Peach Bellini and Coral Crush and positioned them on a white card base I had first die-cut with a stitched rectangle die then ran through with the Subtle embossing folder.  Once that was done, I arranged the floral sprigs and then hot foiled a white sentiment onto black cardstock.


All in all a pretty simple card.  Thanks so much for visiting.  I hope you'll check out the fabulous cards made by the rest of the design team.


Products used:

Cardstock:  White, Black, Coral Crush, Peach Bellini (MFT), Sage (Spellbinders), Ocean Tides (PTI)
Ink:  Eucalyptus, Jade, Pastel Sunrise, Coral Bliss (Altenew)
Dies:  Be Bold Blooms, More Sentiments Hot Foil (Spellbinders), Embossed Edge Squares (Kat Scrappiness), Stitched Mats Rectangles (Lil Inkers)
Accessories:  White Hot Foil, Subtle Embossing Folder (SU)

Cheers
Karren


Tuesday 2 January 2024

Blue Cup

 Hi!  I'm playing along with the new challenge at Color Hues where they are looking for light blue and navy colourways.

I had the idea to Copic-colour a coffee cup in navy blue and put it in a light-blue background so that's what I did.


I'm trying to be a bit more creative in staging my photos.  It probably won't last once I get back to work and time becomes an issue, but for now, it's quite good fun to come up with layouts.  

Funnily, I had originally planned to have the ink-blending and cup in the upper portion of the card, but I did my ink-blending with the card base upside down and had to improvise - so bottom right it is 😄



After ink-blending Salvaged Patina Distress Ink, I masked off the rest of the card base and spattered on some white acrylic paint.  Once that was dry, I stamped the sentiment and added the Copic-coloured cup and saucer which has my favourite beverage - black coffee (second favourite is green tea, but that didn't work with the sentiment!)

Thanks so much for visiting!  For once, I could actually fit all the Copics used in my hand so here they are if anyone is interested.




Products used:

Stamps:  Coffee and Tea (SSS)
Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black, Amalgam (Gina K), Salvaged Patina Distress Ink
Cardstock:  White, X-Press It
Accessories:  White Gloss Paint, Copics

Cheers
Karren