Thinking Of

Hi and welcome!  Our sketch hostess over at Freshly Made Sketches this week is Cecile Ribon.  She gave us an image that tends towards Christmas, but I didn't want to make a Christmas card, so turned it into a floral instead.

Both the floral and the sentiment are NBUS stamp sets for me so it was good to use them.  I stamped and die-cut the images and set them aside to work on the background.  I die-cut a double square frame and backed it with some patterned paper that I'd spattered with gold.  I did the same spattering on the white panel but used some scraps of paper to mask off the top left and bottom right so the gold was contained in a diagonal.

I didn't add any embellishments as I thought the gold was enough.

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

Products used:

Stamps: Garden Treasure (Altenew), Get Well Soon (Honey Bee Stamps)

Ink: Amalgam (Gina K.), Pastel Sunrise, Canyon Clay, Burnt Red, Misty Sage, Mossy Meadow, Warm Sunshine, Caramel Toffee (Altenew)

Cardstock: White, One of a Kind patterned paper (Paper Rose)

Dies: Garden Treasure (Altenew), Get Well Soon (Honey Bee Stamps), Nesting Square Dies (Waffle Flower)

Accessories: Gold Color Shine (Heidi Swapp)

Cheers

Karren

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Tool Birthday

Hi and welcome!  Today's sketch from the team at Freshly Made Sketches was designed by Jen Brum and rather than make a Christmas card, I decided to make a masculine birthday card with some new-to-me dies from Honey Bee Stamps.

I've said it before, but I'm a sucker for anything miniature and these are just so cute!  I cut them out using Milwaukee tool brand colours because my daughter's boyfriend is a builder and uses Milwaukee tools so I had him in mind while making it.

The red frame is placed over top of an embossed panel and I then arranged the tools and a white heat-embossed sentiment.

Thanks so much for visiting.  The design team have created gorgeous cards as usual, so I hope you'll check them out.

And in other news, even though I've been card-making for almost 25 years, I had never put together a cardstock swatch, so after watching a live by Amy Rysavy, I decided to swatch out my cardstock where I have more than 2 sheets of the same brand/colour.  These rings hold MFT, Altenew, Spellbinders, Lawn Fawn, Hero Arts, Simon Says Stamp and PTI (not all the colours for all the brands, of course!).  I haven't swatched my assortment packs of Concord & 9th, Simon Says Stamp, MFT or PTI because I have less than 2 sheets of a colour but this is probably enough to be going on with.  Amusingly, I have multiple companies with the exact same shade.  The photo below makes my colour-loving heart happy. I only wish it wasn't so expensive to ship cardstock to New Zealand or I'd have it all... I created the labels with my Niimbot labelling machine and the tag die is from SugarPea Designs (no longer in business).

Products used:

Stamps: Elegant Sentiments (Waffle Flower)

Ink: Versamark

Cardstock: White, Fog (SSS), Red Hot, Cement Gray, Steel Gray (MFT), Silver matte foil

Dies: Pierced Rectangle Frames, Pierced Fishtail Flag Stax (MFT), Lovely Layers: Woodworking, Lovely Layers: Pegboard Garage Tools (Honey Bee Stamps)

Accessories: Wood Plank Embossing Folder (Honey Bee Stamps), White EP

Cheers

Karren

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Work of Heart

Hi and welcome!  Today's sketch designer over at Freshly Made Sketches is Verena Shapiro and she has a classic sketch for us.  I used it to create a card for my daughter who is coming up to the end of her first year of high school teaching and it's been a tough year for her.

I started with the stamped images which I then stenciled and die-cut.  From there I embossed a Jalapeno Popper panel to provide some texture and adhered it to a white card base.  Two strips of patterned paper onto a white panel were used as per the sketch and I then stamped the sentiment before arranging the stamped images.

I finished with some enamel dots and called it done.  Thanks for visiting.  Please head over and check out the fabulous cards made by the design team.

Products used:

Stamps:  Awesome to the Core (Honey Bee Stamps)

Ink: Amalgam (Gina K.), Versafine Onyx Black, Heartbeat, Mossy Meadow, Green Opal, Milk Chocolate (Altenew), Antique Linen Distress Ink

Cardstock: White, Jalapeno Popper (MFT), B&W Stripes (MFT), Freebie patterned paper (Honey Bee Stamps)

Dies: Awesome to the Core (Honey Bee Stamps)

Accessories: Awesome to the Core Stencils (Honey Bee Stamps), Tropical Forest Enamel Dots (Altenew), Subtle EF (SU)

Cheers

Karren

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CASE It - Distressed Leaves

Hi and welcome.  Over on Instagram I'm joining in the CASE It Instagram Hop and this month I was inspired by Amy Rohl and her gorgeous card which I've shown at the bottom of my post.  I created a panel with various Distress Spray Stains and Spritzes and used some Altenew dies to cut them out.  I then set about the card base with a postage edge panel which was orignally going to be left out and just use the frame, but I liked the look of the splattered panel so re-inserted it.

The outline for the leaves comes from a previously foiled black panel where I made a mess and it only partly foiled.  I've kept it for a couple of years and finally put it to use.  I think it adds a suitably grungy look to the card. The sentiment comes from a Spellbinders stamp set.  I finished with some gems.

Thanks for visiting.  Here is Amy's card - isn't it gorgeous?

Head on over to Instagram and check out the hop.  It'll be amazing as always!

Products used:

Stamps: Hello Sunflower (Spellbinders)

Ink: Versafine Onyx Black

Cardstock: Watercolour paper, Black, Kraft

Dies: Leaf Mix (Altenew), Postal Frames (The Greetery)

Accessories: various Distress Spray Stains, Hickory Smoke Distress Spritz, Gold Color Shine (Heidi Swapp), Back to Basics Gem Stickers (Honey Bee Stamps)

Cheers

Karren

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Snowman Joy

Hi and welcome to the latest Tic Tac Toe Challenge.  This time I went with the right diagonal of Snow/snowman - Gold - Christmas Sentiment to come up with this card.

This uses components of an older MFT card kit.  I used ivory cardstock for the base and patterned paper for the scarf, nose and hat band.  The frme and J and Y were die-cut with Tim Holtz gold metallic cardstock.

This was a pretty quick and simple card to make.  I hope you will join in the fun!  Thanks for visiting.

Products used:

Stamps: Filled With Joy (MFT)

Ink:Versafine Onyx Black

Cardstock:White, black, Ivory (Gina K.), Gold Metallic (Tim Holtz), Perfect Plaid (Lawn Fawn)

Dies: Filled with Joy (MFT), Nesting Rectangle Frames (Waffle Flower)

Accessories: Subtle embossing folder (SU)

Cheers

Karren

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Berry Wreath

Welcome!  Today's card uses the latest sketch from Freshly Made Sketches which was designed by Kim Singhdahlsen. I went the obvious route with the sketch and created a wreath card using hot-foiling.

The wreath was created with both hot-foiling and stenciling.  Once I had finished that I created a wreath arrangement and set it aside.  Onto a kraft cardbase I embossed with a wood plank embossing folder.  I then added the wreath and finished with a hot-foiled sentiment and some champagne drops.

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

Products used:

Ink: Green Valley set, Tea Party set, Grapevine (Altenew)

Cardstock: White, Kraft, Black

Dies: Winter Berries Frame hot foil and die (Pink Fresh), Fishtail Flag Layer Stax (MFT), Holiday Florals Background hot foil (Spellbinders)

Accessories: Winter Berries Frame stencils, Clear Drops: Champagne (Pink Fresh), Wood Planks Embossing Folder (Honey Bee Stamps), gold matte hot foil

Cheers

Karren

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Mushy Hello

Hi and welcome to our newest challenge over at Freshly Made Sketches where our sketch hostess this week is Linda Callahan. Linda gave us a fun sketch which we can take in so many different directions.  I saw the sketch and immediately thought of my Tri Peek a Boo window dies from MFT and I'd also just seen a card featuring mushrooms so my card was born.

All of the mushroom and foliage elements were die-cut from white cardstock and ink-blended (hence the sentiment).  I arranged them into three separate groupings and went to work on my card base.  The gingham paper was die-cut using the peek a book window border part of the die and a panel of Neenah Desert Storm was cut using the circle part of the die.  I added some more gingham paper behind the circles for added interest.

Before adding the foliage and mushrooms, I stamped the sentiment then adhered everything down.  I finished with some brown enamel dots and a heart.

Thanks so much for visiting.  I hope you'll check out the rest of the design team's fabulous cards.

Products used:

Stamps: Sealed Sentiments (Waffle Flower)

Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Antique Linen, Brushed Corduroy, Gathered Twigs, Lumberjack Plaid, Walnut Stain, Peeled Paint, Rusty Hinge, Rustic Wilderness Distress Inks

Cardstock: Neenah Desert Storm, Gingham patterned paper (Echo Park)

Dies: Envelope of Wonder, Autumn Wonder (Spellbinders), Stitched Tri Peek a Boo Window (MFT)

Accessories: Dessert Dreams Enamel Dots (Altenew)

Cheers

Karren

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