Mushroom Mountain

 Hi and welcome!  I am the sketch hostess this week over at Freshly Made Sketches and here is the card I made:

Everything on this card is NBUS - the dies are from the Autumn Wonder set by Spellbinders, the sentiment is part of the 2023 Spellbinders Advent Calendar and the patterned paper is from a new pack by Lawn Fawn.  I was pleased that they play so nicely together.

I die-cut all the autumn images from white cardstock and used Distress Inks and blending brushes to add colour.  I tried to create some shading using darker shades of the ink colours.  I arranged them in a pattern pleasing to my eye and used some Press n Seal to hold all the elements together.  I used an A2 Arches die to cute the patterned paper and adhered that to a white card base.  I then added the inlaid sentiment which was die-cut from matt gold foil to match the speckles in the patterned paper.

I then added the ink-blended elements and finished with an enamel heart.

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

Products used:

Dies:  Autumn Wonder, 2023 Advent Calendar (Spellbinders), A2 Arches (The Greetery)

Cardstock:  White, Black, Matt Gold Foil, Spiffier Speckles (Lawn Fawn)

Ink:  Crushed Olive, Shabby Shutters, Evergreen Bough, Pine Needles, Rustic Wildnerness, Carved Pumpkin, Rusty Hinge, Aged Mahogany, Fired Brick, Brushed Corduroy, Antique Linen, Pumice Stone, Vintage Photo, Gathered Twigs Distress Inks

Accessories:  Enamel Heart (Altenew)

Cheers

Karren

Christmas Divider

Today's  Tic Tac Toe Challenge  is a fun one.  I chose to work with the bottom row Candy-Stripes-Patterned Paper to come up with this Christmas card.

 

The images are all from the same stamp set and I Copic-coloured then die cut them.  I cut a panel of patterned paper and then adhered a die-cut frame.  Within the frame I added the coloured images and a hot-foiled sentiment.

I finished with some clear sparkle pen.  Thanks so much for visiting!

Products used:

Stamps:  Christmas Tag Elements (Waffle Flower)

Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K)

Dies:  Christmas Tag Elements (Waffle Flower), Christmas Mailbox Greetings (Spellbinders), Curio Divider and Details (The Greetery)

Cardstock:  White, Gold Matte Foil, X-Press It, Happy Gnomes patterned paper (Waffle Flower)

Accessories:  Copics, Spectrum Noir Clear Sparkle Pen, Gold Hot Foil

Cheers

Karren

Copper Leaf

 Hi and welcome to a new sketch from the team at Freshly Made Sketches where our hostess this week is Cecile Ribon.  I went 100% literal with Cecile's sketch to come up with this card.

 This is another leaf from my play session with mica stain sprays last week.  This time the leaf is from the Greetery, but the way I created it is the same as last week's card.  While the leaf was drying, I cut a 4.5" square white card base and rubbed on some Black Soot Distress Paint and some Silver Metallic Paint Dabber in a random fashion to mimic the sketch.

I finished with a reverse hot-foiled sentiment and some black enamel dots.  I wish you could see this leaf in real life - the mica stain sprays are so gorgeous!

Thanks for visiting!  Please check out the fabulous cards made by our design them.

Products used:

Cardstock:  White

Ink:  Vintage Photo Distress Ink

Dies:  Jumbo Curiosity Buckeye (The Greetery), Hexi-Gem Sentiments Hot Foil (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Mica Sprays (Burning Ember, Fallen Acorn, Decayed, Tarnished Brass) Silver Metallic Paint Dabber (Ranger), Black Soot Distress Paint, Black Hot Foil

Cheers

Karren

Mica Leaves

Hi and welcome!  Today's card uses the latest sketch from the Freshly Made Sketches team where our hostess this week is Jen Brum.  I went a bit grungy but tried to keep my card clean-lined and came up with this:

I had been playing around with my mica sprays and thought to make some leaves, so I used 11 of them to come up with these leaves.  Once it was dry, I die-cut them and edged them with Black Soot Distress Ink.  I backed them with a black die-cut which I offset very slightly to help them stand out against the background.

Speaking of the background, initially I splattered white and black paint onto a Desert Storm card base but it looked ick (confirmed by my daughter!) so I went over it with a stencil and some crackle paste and I think that added a bit more interest.  For some reason, I always think kraft card bases are lacking as I'm usually a white card-base chick, but I decided to branch out this week.

For the vertical panel, I ran the cardstock panel through some Frayed Burlap Distress Ink I'd spritzed with water and once it was dry, I stenciled over the top with Ground Espresso and then splattered on some white and black paint.

Finally, I finished with a reverse foiled sentiment and called it done.  

Thanks so much for visiting.  The DT have some gorgeous cards, so I hope you'll check them out.

Products used:

Ink:  Frayed Burlap, Ground Espresso, Black Soot Distress Inks

Cardstock:  White, Black, Watercolor, Neenah Desert Storm

Dies:  Fall Foliage (Tim Holtz), Hexi-Gem Sentiments (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Mica Sprays (Burning Ember, Fallen Acorn, Decayed, Tarnished Brass, Unravelled, Irongate, Specimen, Fresh Balsam, Harvest Moon, Tart Cranberry, Wicked Elixir, Phantom Mist) Black Soot Distress Paint, White Acrylic Gloss Spray, Book Stencil (Stamperia), Letters & Numbers Stencil (Stamperia), Black Hot Foil, Distress Crackle Paste

Cheers

Karren

Inlaid Leaves

Welcome to the new challenge from the team at Tic Tac Toe. I went with ink-blending, die-cuts and leaves for my card.

I white-embossed the background stamp and ink-blended over it before due-cutting the Clustered Leaves die. I adhered the panel into a black card base and the popped up the positive image with foam tape. 

I finished with a foiled sentiment.

 

Thanks so much for visiting!

Products Used:

Stamps:  Birthday Word Block (Darkroom Door)

Ink:  Versamark, Scattered Straw, Worn Lipstick, Festive Berries Distress Inks

Cardstock:  White, Black

Dies:  Clustered Leaves (SSS), Wonderful Sentiments Hot Foil and Dies (Pink Fresh)

Accessories:  White EP, Black Hot Foil

Gold Splatters

Hi and welcome!  Today's card uses the latest sketch from Freshly Made Sketches where our hostess this week is Kim Singdahlsen.  I took the opportunity to make a Christmas card to add to my meagre stash.

On a red card base, I splattered some gold shimmer spray and set it aside to dry.  I then stamped and Copic-coloured the Winter Berries Frame stamp and die-cut it.  On a white panel, I embossed with the Tufted embossing folder, added some striped paper and a gold strip then tucked in one of the berry branches.

The hot-foiled sentiment was foiled onto black with gold foil.  I adhered that to the white and striped panel then added it all to the now-dry card base.

Thanks so much for visiting.  I hope you'll check out the wonderful cards made by the rest of the design team.

Products used:

Stamps:  Winter Berries Frame (Pink Fresh Studio)

Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K)

Cardstock:  Amarena Cherry (MFT), White, Black, Gold Matte Foil, Happy Gnomes Paper Pad (Waffle Flower)

Dies:  Winter Berries Frame (Pink Fresh Studio), Holiday Sentiment Series 2 (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Copics, Tufted EF (Spellbinders), Gold Hot Foil, Gold Shimmer Spray (Heidi Swapp)

Cheers

Karren

 

Father's Day Truck

 Hi all and welcome to sketch #601 from the team at Freshly Made Sketches.  Our sketch hostess this week is Linda Callahan.  It's Father's Day here in New Zealand next weekend, so I used Linda's sketch to make a card for my dad.

I chose the truck die then built my card around it.  After die-cutting the truck elements, I blended some darker ink around the sides of the truck body and wheels (and looking at the photo, I now realise I've put one of the wheels upside down!  Anyway, let's ignore that little faux pas.  I wanted something to put in the truck bed and because my dad loves dogs, I chose a MFT set and coloured one of the little dogs and adhered him to the truck.  

The road die wasn't wide enough for the base of the truck, so I cut a rectangle of gray cardstock and added some of the die-cuts from the centre of the road to mimic the rest of the road die-cut.  To create a scene, I stenciled some grass and clouds onto a white panel and then added the die-cut elements.  And yes, I now also realise I've got my road going up into the sky - doh!  The day I made this card was obviously not a great day for creativity.

Onto a black card base, I added a panel of Enchanted Evening embossed with the sentiment and a strip of the silver matte foil cardstock used on the truck.

I then added my panel with foam tape.

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

Products used:

Stamps:  All About Dad, Lucky Dog (MFT)

Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K), Versamark, Tumbled Glass, Twisted Citron, Chipped Sapphire, Black Soot Distress Inks

Cardstock:  White, Black, Vellum, Enchanted Evenine (PTI), Silver Matte Foil Cardstock, Cement Gray, Red Hot (MFT)

Dies:  Lucky Dog, Open Road (MFT), Truckin' Through The Seasons (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Copics, White EP, Micro Cloud Edges Stencil, Grassy Edges Stencil (MFT)

Cheers

Karren

Gilded Leaves

Welcome to the newest challenge from the Tic-Tac-Toe team.  For my card, I went with Frame-it - Gold/Silver - Leaves to come up with this card.

I die-cut a matte gold glitter frame and some black leaves and then set about adding some foundry wax in various places on the leaves.  Once they were heat-set I worked on arranging the leaves within the left side of the frame.  On the right side I added a gold-foiled sentiment.

 

Once I was happy with the placement of all the elements, I adhered it all to a white card base and called it done!

Thanks so much for visiting!  I hope you'll check out the fabulous cards made by the design team.

Products used:

Cardstock:  White, Black, Gold Matte Glitter

Dies:  Spring Leaves, Fall Leaves, Nesting Rectangle Frames (Waffle Flower), Modest Greetings 1 (Poppystamps)

Accessories:  Gold hot foil, Statue Foundry Wax (Tim Holtz)

Cheers

Karren

Limited Edition

 Hi all!  Welcome to a very exciting day for the Freshly Made Sketches challenge.  It is our 600th challenge and we are celebrating by inviting some of our past winners to join us because, let's face it, if it weren't for all the players, we wouldn't be celebrating 600 challenges.  So thank you!

We don't have an official sketch designer this challenge but we do have a fabulous sketch and here is what I did with it:

Now, I was feeling the pressure a bit with all these fabulous guest designers and this is the third card I came up with and I'm still not happy with it, but it is what it is.  I combined all three of my favourite techniques in this card - ink-blending, stenciling and Copic-colouring.  I masked then ink-blended a rainbow panel onto a piece of white cardstock and then spritzed on some shimmer spray to give it a lovely sparkle.

I had just received my order of Waffle Flower Postage Collage goodies and decided to incorporate some of them into my card.  I stamped, coloured and die-cut the little critter and set him aside.  Then I stenciled the background of the postage stamp, stamped the price and the First Class Mail stamp then placed the critter over the top and re-stamped the First Class Mail image.  On my first version, I actually stamped the critter onto the postage die-cut and masked it, but my mask wouldn't hold up to a second inking, so I went the lazy route and die-cut it.

I die-cut a black postage stamp as backing and then added the sentiment before adhering it all to a black card base. 

Thanks so much for visiting.  Please head over to the challenge blog and check out all the amazing cards by the DT and guests.

Products used:

Stamps:  Unicorns and Glitter (MFT), Postage Collage (Waffle Flower)

Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K), Versafine Onyx Black, Worn Lipstick, Festive Berries, Spiced Marmalade, Squeezed Lemonade, Twisted Citron,  Salvaged Patina, Wilted Violet, Spun Sugar Distress Inks

Cardstock:  White, Black, X-Press It

Dies:  Unicorns and Glitter (MFT), Postage Collage Die (Waffle Flower)

Accessories:  Copics, Shimmer Spray, Postage Collage Coloring Stencil (Waffle Flower)

Cheers

Karren

Squirrel!

Hi and welcome to my blog!  Today's card uses the latest sketch from the Freshly Made Sketches team where Jen Mitchell is our hostess.  I wanted to do some Copic colouring, so came up with this card:

I stamped and coloured these images and cut them with my Scan n Cut.  I then die-cut a fishtail flag from pale bluepatterned paper and added some grass with some matching paper in pale green.  I wanted to not have a white card base because I always go for white, so decided on kraft.  I embossed a white panel with the Subtle embossing folder and adhered that in the centre of the card base then added strips of Hot Fudge cardstock at either end.  The sentiment was stamped onto the card base and thenI added the tag and images.

 

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

Products used:

Stamps:  Squirrel! (MFT)

Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K), Versafine Onyx Black
Cardstock:  Kraft, White, Hot Fudge (MFT), X-Press It, Watercolor Wash (MFT)

Dies: Jumbo Fishtail Flag Stax, Grass Border (MFT)

Accessories:  Copics, Subtle EF

Lighthouse

Hi and welcome to the newest challenge from the team at Tic Tac Toe . I chose red-nautical-stripes and a very old stamp set for my card.

I stamped the images and die-cut them. On a white card base I added two strips of patterned paper on the outer edges.  On a smaller panel, I added the sentiment, lighthouse and birds before adhering it to the card base with foam tape.

Thanks so much for visiting.

Products used:

Stamps:  Guiding Light (PTI)

Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black, Cranberry Fizz (Catherine Pooler), Lost Shadow Distress Oxide

Cardstock:  White, B&W Stripes (MFT)

Dies:  Guiding Light (PTI)

Cheers

Karren

Corner Flowers

 Hi all and welcome to another sketch from the team at Freshly Made Sketches.  Our hostess this week is Jennifer Timko and I went the obvious route with flowers for my card!

I stamped and stenciled these flowers and used the co-ordinating dies to cut them out.  Onto a white card base I added a panel die-cut with the Triangle Background die and then added a white frame popped up with foam tape.

I then popped up the flowers with foam tape as well as the white-embossed sentiment.  Finally, I finished with some clear drops.

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

I'm linking this up to the current Color Hues challenge to use Teal and Orange.  My orange looks a bit washed out but I can assure you they started out as orange inks :)  I'm also linking to Inskpirational who are looking for stencils, with layering stencils as an optional twist.

Products used:

Stamps:  In the Woodland (Altenew), Elegant Sentiments (Waffle Flower)

Ink:  Versamark, Amalgam (Gina K), Golden Sunset set, Sea Shore set, Espresso (Altenew)

Cardstock:  White, Black

Dies: In the Woodland (Altenew), Elegant Sentiments (Waffle Flower), Nesting Rectangle Frames (Waffle Flower), Triangle Background (C+9)

Accessories:  In the Woodland stencils (Altenew), White EP, Clear Drops

Cheers

Karren

Friendly Flowers

 

Hi all and welcome!  TodayI am thrilled to be a Guest Designer at The Flower Challenge where the theme is to add spots or stripes.  And in more great news, I will be taking over running of The Flower Challenge from October, to give Viv and Aileen a well-deserved break after 7 years.  I have fond memories of this challenge, because I helped Aileen set it up at the beginning and I was on the design team for several months before having to step down due to other commitments.

Anyway, onto my card.

This was a stenciled image I had in my stash so this card was reasonably easy to pull together.  I gold hot-foiled the stripes onto a white panel, cut the panel down to fit onto a coral card base and then added the flowers with foam tape.  I made sure to leave enough room for the gold hot-foiled sentiment to fit near the top.

Thanks so much for visiting.  The Flower Challenge DT have some gorgeous cards, so please check them out and have a go yourself.

Products used:

Stamps:  Garden Roses (Pink Fresh Studio)

Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K), Martian, Tropical Forest sets (Altenew)

Cardstock:  White, Coral Crush (MFT), Pitch Black (Hero Arts)

Dies:  Garden Roses (Pink Fresh Studio), Skinny Stripe BG, Hexi-gem Sentiments (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Garden Roses stencils, Gold Matte Hot Foil

Cheers

Karren

Rainbow Hello

Hi and welcome to the latest sketch from the team at Freshly Made Sketches, where our hostess this week is Jacquie Southas.  I had several ideas for the sketch but this is the one I ended up with.

I had some strips of coloured cardstock leftover from another project, so put them to use here creating a backdrop for my negative die-cut sentiment and also the vertical strip.  To add some interest to the background, I used a woodgrain 3D embossing folder before adding all the strips of cardstock.

And that's it!  

Thanks so much for visiting.  The DT have some fabulous cards, so please check them out.

Products used:

Cardstock:  White, black, various coloured scraps

Dies:  Bold Hello (Altenew)

Accessories:  Lumber 3D EF (Tim Holtz)

Cheers

Karren

 

Joy in the Journey

Welcome to the new challenge from the team at Tic Tac Toe.  This week I chose Stitching - Die-cut - Summer to come up with this card.

The bicycle elements were stamped, Copic-coloured and die-cut before being assembled.  The background was die-cut from both cardstock and patterned paper.  I found a sentiment from another stamp set that worked well so stamped that in the top panel.

The Summer Splash die-cut is popped up on foam tape as is the bicycle.  I finished with some white enamel dots.

Thanks for visiting.  The DT have some gorgeous creations so please check them out.

Products used:

Stamps:  Beautiful Ride (SSS), Spectacular Adventures (Altenew)

Ink:  Amalgam (Gina K), Versafine Onyx Black

Cardstock:  White, Summer Splash (MFT), X-Press It, Watercolor Wash (MFT)

Dies:  Beautiful Ride (SSS), Stitched Cover-Up Horizontal (MFT)

Accessories:  Copics, White Enamel Dots