Best Ever

Today's sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches was designed by Kim Singdahlsen.  Originally I was going to use butterflies for the circular elements but couldn't get them to look right, so veered off on a tangent and went with gears for a masculine card.

I embossed onto a panel of kraft cardstock and went over the embossed areas lightly with white ink.  The gears were cut from watercolour cardstock and then spritzed with various distress spray stains.  I arranged the gears onto the kraft panel and adhered them down.  

 

The sentiment was stamped, embossed and die-cut before being added to the panel.  I then added it all to a black card base and called it done.

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

Products used:

Stamps:  Dad Squared (The Greetery)

Ink: Versamark, Unicorn White (Hero Arts)

Cardstock: Black, Kraft (MFT), Watercolour paper

Dies: Dad Squared (The Greetery), Vault Watch Gears (Tim Holtz)

Accessories: Timeless Type EF (SU), Black Soot, Antique Bronze, Tarnished Brass, Brushed Pewter Distress Spray Stains, eyelets

Cheers

Karren

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Citrus Christmas

Hi and welcome to another challenge from the team at Freshly Made Sketches, where our hostess this week is Jen Mitchell.  Turns out I mis-interpreted Jen's sketch from the final design so do as I say, not as I do this week... 

I wasn't planning on making a Christmas card when I pulled out these Dried Citrus Slices dies but that's what happened.

I started by creating the citrus slices, which I was intending to use for the scallop element on the sketch.  From there it just morhped into a Christmas card, with ephemera tags, die-cut holly sprig and vintage-looking patterned paper.  I added some ink-blending round the edges of the embossed panel and the patterned paper, but didn't do any distressing in keeping with the clean theme at FMS.

Thanks so much for visiting and to everyone who left heartfelt comments on my post from last week, thank you.  It meant a lot.

Please check out the fabulous cards from the rest of the design team.

Products used:

Stamps:  Curio Labels (The Greetery)

Ink: Walnut Stain DOX, Walnut Stain, Forest Moss, Aged Mahogany, Festive Berries, Pine Needles, Rustic Wilderness, Antique Linen, Mustard Seed, Spiced Marmalade Distress Inks

Cardstock: White, Desert Storm, Christmas Backdrops patterned paper (Tim Holtz)

Dies: Bigger Botanicals Holly 1, Dried Citrus Slices (The Greetery)

Accessories: Burlap EF (Honey Bee Stamps), Sepia Serenity Ephemera (Aall & Create)

Cheers

Karren

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Birthday Wishes

Hi and welcome.  I'm back with a new challenge for Tic Tac Toe after a short break due to a very close bereavement in my family.  I chose to go with the centre row in the board with Any Colour/Free/Sentiment to come up with this birthday card.

I ink-blended a panel of cardstock with three colours of Distress ink and then I spritzed with Crackling Campfire Distress Spritz and set it aside to dry.  I die-cut the sentiment three times and stacked them together.  A few die-cut elements from a Carnation Crafts set finished off the card.

Thanks for visting.  Please check out the challenge blog and have a go yourself.

Products used:

Ink: Antique Linen, Dried Marigold, Crackling Campfire Distress Ink

Cardstock: White

Dies: Big Birthday Wishes (MFT), Full Flourish (Carnation Crafts)

Accessories: Crackling Campfire Distress Spritz

Cheers

Karren

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Daisy Thoughts

Hi and welcome.  So it's been a while since I've been here.  My husband passed away in May and it was completely unexpected and such a shock.  I was actually in my craft room when I got the news and it took me weeks before I could go back into that room.  Even now, I have to force myself to go and sit at my craft desk and try to create.  

This card was the second one I've made since he passed.  The first was for my daughter's 24th birthday last week and, fair to say, it was a pretty crappily executed card, but she liked it so that's all that matters.  This card didn't involve a lot of original thinking.  I used the colour scheme for the daisies from the packaging and then chose a colour combo from the Colour Cubes.

After I die-cut and ink-blended the daisy elements, I used the matching embossing folder to give some 3D details.  I then went with an Acorn card base and onto that I popped an embossed panel with the centre cut out with a square die.

I finished with a white hot-foiled sentiment on black cardstock.

Thanks for visiting.  This card uses the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches and Jennifer Timko is our sketch hostess this week so I hope you'll check out her card as well as all the fabulous cards made by this wonderful design team.

Products used:

Ink:  Berrylicious, Acai Berry, Honey Drizzle, Andromeda (Altenew)

Cardstock: White, Black, Acorn (Spellbinders), Grapevine (Altenew)

Dies:  Inside/Out Stitched Squares (MFT), Always and Forever BetterPress Plate and die (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Lush Botanicals: African Daisy Embossing Folder and dies, Paper Rhythm Embossing Folder (Altenew), white hot foil

Cheers

Karren

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93rd Birthday

Hi and welcome.  I'm the hostess over at Freshly Made Sketches this week but this is a quick post because I've got some things to deal with in real life.

This card was made a few months ago for my dad's 93rd birthday.  I thought it would work for my sketch so I based my sketch off it.

For a very quick explanation, I used stencils and soft ink-blending for the muted background and ink-blended die-cuts for the focal point.

Thanks for visiting.  I hope you'll check out the wonderful cards made by the rest of the design team and have a go yourselves.

Products used:

Stamps: To the Wise One (Honey Bee Stamps), Mini Messages & More (MFT)

Ink: Gathered Twigs Distress Oxide, Antique Linen, Gathered Twigs, Tea Dye, Frayed Burlap, Scorched Timber, Speckled Egg, Iced Spruce Distress Ink

Cardstock: White

Dies: Rustic Garden (Spellbinders)

Accessories: Winter Wonder Background stencils (Honey Bee Stamps), Antiqued Bronze Distress Spray Stain

Cheers

Karren

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Good or Evil...

Hi, just a quick post from me today, sorry.  Today's card uses the latest sketch at Freshly Made Sketches, where Cecile Ribon is our hostess.  I went a bit grungy again with my card and used a funny sentiment sticker to go with the Tim Holtz Papercut Cafe coffee cup.

I won't go into details but the products I've used are below.  Please check out the wonderful cards made by the rest of the design team.

Products used:

Stamps: Good Reading Background (SSS)

Ink: Unicorn White (Hero Arts)

Cardstock: White, Desert Storm, Fog (Spellbinders), Dark Night, Espresso, Dark Chocolate (Altenew), After Midnight, Stone Gray (MFT), Enchanted Evening (PTI)

Dies: Papercut Cafe (Tim Holtz), Stitched Strip (MFT)

Accessories: Books Stencil (Stamperia),Opaque White Crackle Paste (Tim Holtz), Gloss White Spray (Dina Wakely), Black Splatter Medium (SSS), Small Talk: Snarky stickers (Tim Holtz)

Cheers

Karren

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Time is Ticking

Hi and welcome! It's time for another challenge from Tic Tac Toe and this time I went down the left column with Numbers/Initials - Gold - Vellum.  My numbers are roman numerals but they still count, right?

I'm still playing around with mixed media and this card utilises a lot of new stuff that I had just received.  I fell in love with the Gardens of Time release by Stamperia so bought several of the elements - some of which I used on this card.  The thing with a lot of mixed media is that it's a one and done - ephemera, patterned paper, rub-ons etc - use them once and they're gone.  That's hard for my crafty hoarding brain to deal with!

Anyway, the background of this card is a panel from 3Quarter Designs which I stenciled over with crackle paste then when that was dry, I sprayed on some distress spray stains, then flicked on some gold and Salvaged Patina Distress Oxide spray.  The central elements are all pieces from either the Garden of Time collection or 3Quarter Designs Eclectic Clockwork patterned paper pack.  On all the elements I distressed the edges, inked with Walnut Stain Distress Ink and then splattered on some gold and Salvaged Patina.

For the vellum part of the challenge, I die-cut some small leaves and arranged them with the other elements.  I also found some really, really old (like 20+ years) roman numeral stickers so used one of those as well.

I finished with some linen thread on the tag and popped up a butterfly from the ephemera pack with foam squares.  I thought about a sentiment but didn't have anything appropriate so left it off.  I guess Time's Ticking can be a sentiment...

Thanks for visiting!

Products used:

Ink: Walnut Stain Distress Ink, Vintage Photo, Scorched Timber, Tarnished Brass Distress Spray Stains, Salvaged Patina Distress Oxide Spray

Cardstock: White (card base), Eclectic Clockwork patterned paper (3Quarter Designs), Gardens of Time patterned paper, ephemera, junk journal, rub-ons (Stamperia)

Dies: Curvy Leaves (Elizabeth Designs)

Accessories: Mixed Clocks Stencil (Stamperia), Distress Crackle Paste, gold Roman numerals (unknown), gold eyelet, linen thread

Cheers

Karren

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