Thursday, 25 September 2025

Santa Paws

Welcome to the newest sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches where our hostess this week is Narelle Farrugia.  I thought it was about time I started on some Christmas cards, although, if things go like last year, I won't send any out.  I find it hard to celebrate Christmas and last year I gave myself permission to not celebrate it.


Anyway, onto the card.  I was pressed for time, so found this pre-coloured image (badly coloured I might add!) and decided that was going to be the focal point for my card.  Onto a white card base, I stamped the Holly Jolly background stamp with Morning Frost ink, then added a panel of vellum to soften the stamping.  I chose three colours of cardstock to match the dog image and die-cut with a Wonky Rectangles die.  Onto the red panel I white heat-embossed the sentiment.



I finished with some ruby red pearls and called it done.




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




Products used:

Stamps:  Happy Pawlidays (MFT), Holly Jolly Background (Honey Bee Stamps)
Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K), Morning Frost (Altenew)
Cardstock:  White, Stone Gray, Wild Cherry (MFT), Dove (C+9), vellum
Dies: Wonky Stitched Rectangle Stax (MFT)
Accessories:  Ruby Red Pearls (Pretty Pink Posh)

Cheers
Karren

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Thursday, 18 September 2025

Torn Hodgepodge

Hello and welcome!  Our sketch hostess this week at Freshly Made Sketches is Michele Ferguson and I went a tad rogue with my interpretation, letting Distress Spray Stains  and white embossing define the sketch elements.


After being on my wishlist for months, I finally purchased the Hodgepodge stamp by Tim Holtz.  I absolutely adore collage stamps, which goes back to the early 2000's but don't often incorporate them into my mostly clean stamping style these days.  But I had to have Hodgepodge and the week it arrived, I put it to use on this sketch.

I was originally going to do ink-blending so started out with some Bristol Smooth cardstock, but then veered to spray stains so the paper choice probably wasn't best but it worked.  I white heat-embossed the stamp onto the paper, then created a stencil from some torn paper edge dies and some stencil plastic.  Once the stencils were in place, I went to town with all the sprays you can see in the product list below!  Before removing the stencils, I flicked on some foundry wax and heated it for some added shine.



I had a week bit of ink seep under the stencil but a strategically placed sentiment fixed that problem.

Thanks so much for visiting.  Please check out the fabulous cards made by the design team.






Products used:

Stamps: Hodgepodge (Tim Holtz)
Ink: Versamark, Black Soot Distress Ink
Cardstock: White, Bristol Smooth, Black, Gold Kraft Stock
Dies: Outlined Hello (Waffle Flower), Torn Paper Edges (MFT)
Accessories:  Distress Spray Stains: Crackling Campfire, Rusty Hinge, Tumbled Glass, Gathered Twigs, Weatherwed Wood, Bundled Sage, Scorched Timber. Distress Oxide Spray: Salvaged Patina. Distress Spritz: Rusty Hinge, Hickory Smoke. Gilded Foundry Wax, White EP, Stencil plastic

Cheers
Karren

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Friday, 12 September 2025

Tall Hello

Hi and welcome!  Today's card is for the latest over at Tic Tac Toe Challenge. I went with the top row - Rectangle-Die-cut-Stripes for this card.


I already had the strips of gray cardstock adhered together so it was a simple matter to die-cut the word out of the panel.  I then also die-cut it from a blue panel and pieced it back into the negative on the stripes.  I painted over the letters with clear sparkle pen, matted it onto the same blue cardstock and called it done!


Thanks for visiting!  I hope you'll get time to play along.






Products used:

Cardstock: White, Grout Gray, Cement Gray, Gravel Gray, Steel Gray, Black, Tropical Teal (MFT)
Dies: Slimline Stripes (Pink Fresh), Tall Hello (MFT), A2 Rectangle Stax 1 and 2 (MFT)
Accessories:  Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen

Cheers
Karren

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Thursday, 11 September 2025

Bokeh Rose

Hi and welcome!  I am the sketch hostess this week over at Freshly Made Sketches and I have to admit I made the sketch fit this card that I had made some months ago and never posted!





I used pink, yellow and peachy inks to create a blended background and then went over it with a bokeh stencil to create a soft-looking background.  I then die-cut an arch frame from white cardstock and adhered that to the base.

For the rose, I started with white cardstock and ink-blended the same colours onto the various layers, adding greens for the stems.  When I was assembling the rose, I used foam tape in between each of the layers for added dimension.



I finished with a simple gold hot-foiled birthday sentiment.


Thanks so much for visiting.  I hope you'll check out the way the rest of the design team have used my sketch.
I'm linking this card up to the Anything Goes Die Challenge at Just Us Girls as well as the Mark Your Mark challenge at Addicted to Stamps and More (ink-blending on background and rose).






Products used:

Ink:  Pinkalicious, Warm Sunshine, Caramel Toffee, Buttercream, Mossy Meadow, Misty Sage, Green Opal (Altenew), Unicorn White (Hero Arts)
Cardstock:  White, Black, Bristol Smooth
Dies:  Lovely Layers: Rose (Honey Bee Stamps), A2 Arches (The Greetery), Hexi-Gem Sentiments Hot Foil  (Spellbinders)
Accessories:  Bokeh Stencil (Taylored Expressions), Gold Hot Foil

Cheers
Karren

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Edited to Add:  This card got a shout-out at Just Us Girls.




Thursday, 4 September 2025

Circle Congrats


Welcome to another challenge from the team at Freshly Made Sketches where Cecile Ribon is our sketch hostess this week.  I "sort of" stuck to the sketch to come up with this card.


I wasn't sure what to use for the circle element, then thought of a circle sentiment and it sort of grew from there.  I wanted a dark cardbase and found these floral images already stamped (score!) so this card came together pretty quickly.


The dark blue panel was embossed with a Linen cover plate to give it a bit of texture.  I finished with some enamel dots to match the sentiment.

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


Products used:

Stamps: Grouped Fresh Dahlias (The Ton)
Ink: Grass Fields, Tea Party sets (Altenew)
Cardstock: White, Dune, Oceanside (Spellbinders)
Dies: Grouped Fresh Dahlias (The Ton), Congrats Circle Frame (MFT), Linen & Canvas plate (PTI)
Accessories: Warm & Cozy Enamel Dots (Altenew)

Cheers
Karren

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