Thursday, 16 October 2025

Circle Flowers

Hi and welcome!  Our sketch hostess this week at Freshly Made Sketches is Jennifer Timko and she has a fabulous yet CAS sketch for us.  

I went looking through my inventory for a circle frame and found this stamp set and thought it would work perfectly. 


 I did, however, forget the layer in the background and ironically, I did contemplate cutting the yellow panel a bit smaller, but decided not to!

The image was stamped and stenciled before being die-cut and then I added some sparkle pen.  I made a bit of a boo-boo with the stenciling so decided it was a good place for the sentiment.


This card is quite "in your face" so I apologise to anyone whose retinas were burned...

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



Products used:

Stamps: Elegant Floral Frames (Honey Bee Stamps)
Ink: Amalgam (Gina K), Firefly, Shadow Creek, Mountain Pine, Warm Sunshine, Caramel Toffee (Altenew)
Cardstock: White, Honey Drizzle (Altenew)
Dies: Elegant Floral Frames (Honey Bee Stamps)
Accessories: Elegant Floral Frames Stencils, Burlap Embossing Folder (Honey Bee Stamps), Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen

Cheers
Karren

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Friday, 10 October 2025

Embossed Leaves


Hi and welcome!  It's time for another Tic Tac Toe challenge, and this time I went with the centre column Foliage/Leaves - Free - Thank You to come up with this card.



I've been a bit obsessed lately with Distress Spray Stains so once again I pulled them out to have a play.  I white embossed the Hodge Podge stamp onto watercolour paper then went to town with multiple spray stains and spritzes.  Once I was happy with the result I let the paper dry then die-cut with various leaf shapes.  Before I adhered the black layer on top, I took each leaf and added some foundry wax with my finger before heat-setting.


I embossed a kraft panel with the Burlap embossing folder then added a black frame.  Within the frame I arranged the leaves and a gold foiled thanks sentiment and called it done.


Thanks for visiting.  I hope you'll have time to play along with us.

Products used:

Ink: Versamark, various Distress Spray Stains and Distress Spritz
Cardstock: Neenah Desert Storm, Black, Distress Watercolor Paper (Tim Holtz)
Dies: Fall Leaves, Nesting Rectangle Frames (Waffle Flower), Hexi-Gem Sentiments Hot Foil (Spellbinders)
Accessories: Burlap Embossing Folder (Honey Bee Stamps), White Embossing Powder, Gold Hot Foil, Gilded Foundry Wax (Tim Holtz)

Cheers
Karren

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Thursday, 9 October 2025

Cosy Christmas

Hi, it’s time for a new sketch from the team at Freshly Made Sketches  and this week our sketch hostess is Judy Rozema. I made another Christmas card for my paltry stash and came up with this.


I used the Colour Cube for the colour combo and from there it was a matter of putting together the (fiddly) die-cut rocking chair and accessories and stamping the sentiment onto one of the panels.  Once I'd stamped the sentiment, I taped the four panels on the back and ran it through the Subtle embossing folder.




Thanks for visiting.  Please check out the fabulous cards made by the rest of the design team and I hope you'll find some time to join us.


Products used:

Stamps: Christmas Messages (Hero Arts)
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Scorched Timber, Black Soot, Ground Espresso, Aged Mahogany Distress Inks
Cardstock: White, Merlot, Dune (Spellbinders), Fine Linen (PTI), Dove (C+9), Gravel Gray, Milk Chocolate (MFT)
Dies:Christmas Rocking Chair (Spellbinders)
Accessories:  Pink Copic, Subtle EF (SU)

Cheers
Karren

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Thursday, 2 October 2025

Delilah

You probably have to be of an age to get the meaning of this blog post title.  I hope you don't have an ear worm now but as soon as I found this "Hey There" die, I couldn't get the song out of my head 😄

Anyway, Amy O'Neill is our sketch hostess over at Freshly Made Sketches this week.  I looked through my NBUS and found this cassette tape die and the card came together pretty easily.  I stenciled the card base with a music stencil and white embossing paste.  



While that was drying, I put together the die-cut elements.  For the fishtail flag, I cut the top and bottom in two additional colours and adhered them to the vellum flag.  It's hard to tell in the photo, but the actual tape is cut from dark brown cardstock.


Thanks so much for visiting.  Head over and check out the fabulous cards made by the rest of the design team.






Products used:

Cardstock: White, Black, Vellum, Hot Fudge (MFT), Blue Spruce, Teal Topaz, Waterfall (Spellbinders), Silver Matte Foil
Dies: Mix Tape (Hero Arts), Stitched Fishtail Flag Stax, Hey There, Cupcake (MFT)
Accessories: Music Stencil (Newton's Nook), White Embossing Paste

Cheers
Karren

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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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