Blended Circles

 Hi and welcome! Our sketch hostess this week at Freshly Made Sketches is Kim Singdahlsen and while I missed a couple of layers, I stuck pretty close to the sketch.

I stenciled onto the white card base with embossing paste and once that was dry, I used a circle stencil and some distress inks to ink-blend through the stencil. Once finished, I took a damp paper towel and rubbed over the ink to reveal the white stenciling.

I finished with a new stamp and die set for the sentiment that I did a bit of ink-blending on, and some black enamel dots for a bit of drama.

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

Products used:

Stamps:  Written Words (C+9)

Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black, Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade, Wild Honey Distress Inks

Cardstock: White

Dies:  Written Words (C+9)

Accessories:  Masking Circles (Taylored Expressions), Daily News: Coffee & Chocolate (Stamperia), White Embossing Paste, Clear Embossing Powder, Black Enamel Dots

Cheers

Karren

Circle Flowers

 Hi all!  A surprise post from me today.  As some of you know, I administer The Flower Challenge blog and due to injury within our design team, I am stepping in to fill the gap for the next few months.  This month's challenge is to Add Circles and because it's our 100th challenge, some of the design team have prizes on offer, so I urge you to head over to the challenge and check it out.

My card is fairly simple.  A tone-on-tone stenciled background (which includes some circle shapes); a die-cut and stacked circle frame and a small floral arrangement.  The flowers and leaves were left over from a previous card so all I had to do was arrange them.

I finished with a sympathy sentiment and some matching pearls.  

Thanks for visiting!

Products used:

Stamps:  Assorted Greetings (Gina K.)

Ink:  Limestone, Industrial Diamond, Eucalyptus, Pastel Sunrise, Coral Bliss (Altenew)

Cardstock:  Jellybean Green (MFT), Soft Stone (PTI), Steel Gray, Coral Crush, Peach Bellini (MFT), Ocean Tides (PTI)

Dies:  Circle Loops (SSS), Be Bold Blooms (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Geometric Grid Stencil (Aall & Create), Pastel Pearls (Honey Bee Stamps)

Cheers

Karren

Yellow Flowers

Welcome to the latest challenge from the Tic-Tac-Toe team. I designed the board for this challenge.  I went right column with Thinking Of You - Foliage - Die Cuts to come up with this card.

I stamped and stenciled the image then die-cut it using the co-ordinating die.  I also die-cut the square out of the centre. I added some additional colour to the flowers and leaves with Copic markers.  After stamping the sentiment, I die-cut that as well.  

Onto a Lemon Tart card base which I'd embossed with the Subtle embossing folder, I added the focal image and sentiment with foam tape.  I finished with some yellow enamel dots.

Thanks for visiting!  I hope you'll join us!

Products used:

Stamps:  Squared Spring Florals (Honey Bee Stamps)

Ink:  Memento London Fog, Versafine Onyx Black, Moon Rock, Misty Sage, Mossy Meadow, Buttercream, Warm Sunshine, Fresh Lemon (Altenew)

Cardstock:  White, Lemon Tart (PTI)

Dies:  Squared Spring Florals (Honey Bee Stamps)

Accessories:  Subtle EF (SU), Copics, Enamel Dots

Cheers

Karren

 

Except Young Again...

 Hi and welcome!  Linda Callahan is our sketch hostess over at Freshly Made Sketches and, knowing her as I do, I think she'll get a laugh out of the sentiment on my card.

Now, before I start, yes my card is flipped and the reason is solely because I must have turned my die-cut panel upside down before working on the rest my card.  Doh!  

To make my card, I took a panel of freebie patterned paper and adhered it to a white card base.  I then took a word window die and die-cut three openings to (originally) match the sketch out of a panel of Coral Crush cardstock.  I then lined up the sentiment stamps with the openings and stamped them onto the patterned paper.

I wanted to add some drama so added slim strips of black to peek out from each opening.  I then spattered on some white ink and some gold ink before adhering the panels together.  In hindsight, I sort of wish I didn't do the spattering, but too late now. Finally I finished with some enamel dots and a heart.  I like the serious look of the sentiment and then there's the last line...

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

Products used:

Stamps:  Mini Messages: Sassy Birthday (Honey Bee Stamps)

Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black

Cardstock:  White, Black, Coral Crush (MFT) Freebie patterned paper

Dies:  Stitched Rectangle Word Window (MFT)

Accessories:  Black enamel dots, Gold Shimmer Spray (Heidi Swapp), Unicorn White Ink Spray (Hero Arts)

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

Floral Stump

 Hi and welcome! Today’s sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches was designed by Narelle Farrugia. I am still on my Honey Bee die kick so pulled out some more NBUS for this card.

All the die-cut elements were cut from white cardstock and ink-blended with Altenew inks. Once I had finished the ink-blending, I arranged the elements to sort of match the sketch. I wanted a background so chose this cover plate and cut it from white and adhered it to the card base, before adding the die-cuts.

The hot-foiled sentiment was already prepared so I added it with foam tape and called it done. 

Thanks for visiting. The design team gave some fabulous cards so please check them out.

Products used:

Ink:  Misty Morning, Nimbus, Evergreen, Eucalyptus, Mountain Mist, Buttercream, Maple Yellow, Hazelnut, Dark Chocolate

Cardstock:  White, Black

Dies:  Slice & Stump, Lovely Layers: Mini Holiday Florals (Honey Bee Stamps), Rocks Glass (Catherine Pooler), Hexi Gem Sentiments Hot Foil & Die (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Gold Hot Foil

Cheers

Karren

Purple Anenome

 Hi and welcome!  I am the sketch hostess this week over at Freshly Made Sketches and I added a few more layers than I usually do to my sketch.  

I got a whole lot of Honey Bee Stamps products during the Black Friday sales and I have been trying to work through them over the small amounts of time I've had to create lately.  This anenome flower was made using white cardstock and Altenew inks.  Once it was put together (minus the centre) I spattered it with gold colour shine and white acrylic paint.  I then spattered the centre elements with Black Soot ink before assembling.  

The card base was stenciled with white embossing paste (got a thing for stenciling at the moment!) and then I chose some pattered paper and copper foil to add the layers.

I finished with a copper hot foiled sentiment.  Thanks for visiting.  Head on over and see how the rest of the team interpreted my sketch and I hope you'll have a go yourself.

Products used:

Ink:  Wisteria, Hydrangea, Ultraviolet, Andromeda, Yellow Ochre, Olive, Moss (Altenew), Black Soot Distress Ink

Cardstock:  White, Watercolor Wash, B&W Stripes (MFT), Copper foil

Dies:  Lovely Layers: Anenome (Honey Bee Stamps), Hexi-Gem Sentiments (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Copper hot foil, Shabby Rose Stencil (Stamperia), White Embossing Paste, White Acrylic Spray, Gold Color Shine

Cheers

Karren

Do Not Adjust Your Set

Hi and welcome!  Today is my last day of my holiday break and I'm back at work on Monday.  Today is also the first chance I've had to make a card just for fun.  The Honey Bee Stamps Buzzworthy Challenge FB group is asking us to recreate a favourite card from 2024 using Honey Bee Stamps products.  My card I chose is this one from February 2024. To be honest, I wouldn't call it my favourite because it's got colours that really make my eye twitch (magenta and fuschia are not my favourite colours!) but I like the layout and the stripes as well as the die so I decided to recreate it using the absence of colour - which corresponded with the current challenge at Color Throwdown.  As it also predominately uses dies, I'm also linking up to Just Us Girls die challenge.

 

I cut strips of cardstock in various shades of gray and also black and adhered them onto some double-sided adhesive paper.  Onto a white card base I stenciled over the Salvaged Brick stencil with white embossing paste and set it aside to dry.  I then created the cherry blossom using the same gray cardstocks as the strips.  I added a touch of gray shading where I thought it was needed and finished with a liberal spritz of shimmer spray to feminise it a bit.

The sentiment was stamped and die-cut and added to a Soft Stone die-cut circle.

Thanks for visiting.

Products used:

Stamps:  On The Line - Succulents (Honey Bee Stamps)

Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black, Morning Frost (Altenew)

Cardstock:  White, Black, Soft Stone (PTI), Cement Gray, Gravel Gray, Steel Gray (MFT)

Dies:  Cherry Blossom, On The Line - Succulents (Honey Bee Stamps)

Accessories:  Salvaged Brick Stencil (Honey Bee Stamps), Embossing Paste, Shimmer Spray

Cheers

Karren

Floral Boots

Hi and welcome to the first Freshly Made Sketch challenge of 2025, where our hostess this week is Cecile Ribon.

I wanted to play with some NBUS dies I bought in the Black Friday sales, so came up with this card (hopefully you can still see the sketch...)

I worked on the die-cuts first, cutting everything except the black elements from white cardstock and ink-blending to add colour.  For the boots, I cut around the toes to take away the pointed witch's boot and to try and make them look more "normal".  I bought this set for the florals but it's nice to get use out of the other elements as well.

Once all the die-cutting and ink-blending was finished, I arranged the elements and used Press n Seal to keep it all intact while I worked on the card base. 

Onto a 4.75" square Fog card base I stenciled Distress Grit Paste over the Coffee Break stencil, deliberately not going to the edges of the card panel.  Once that was dry, I adhered the arrangement onto the card base and then added a white-embossed sentiment.

Thanks for visiting.  Head on over to the blog to check out the wonderful cards made by the rest of the design team.

Products used:

Stamps:  To The Wise One (Honey Bee Stamps)

Ink:  Versamark, Grape Agate, Plum, Pure Graphite, Pink Pearl, Coral Bliss, Heart Beat, Vineyard Berry, Butternut, Pumpkin Pie, Yellow Ochre, Limestone, Jade, Eucalyptus (Altenew), Ground Espresso, Scorched Timber Distress Inks

Cardstock:  White, Black, Fog (SSS)

Dies:  Lovely Layers: Mini Fall Florals, Lovely Layers:  Mini Holiday Florals, To The Wise One (Honey Bee Stamps)

Accessories:  White EP, Coffee Break stencil (Stamperia), Distress Grit Paste (Tim Holtz)

Cheers

Karren