Row of Buildings

Hi and welcome!  Jen Brum is our sketch hostess this week over at Freshly Made Sketches and she gave us a row of circles to play with.  I turned the circles into buildings and came up with this card:

I've been enjoying playing with layering die-cuts and ink-blending lately, so these were all cut from white cardstock and ink-blended with mostly neutral colours to try and give a cohesive look.  I used a mini-slimline card base and die-cut a smaller panel from a nesting die set.  Onto that panel I lightly ink-blended Speckled Egg distress ink, fading it into white to mimic snow.  I then spritzed shimmer spray on the panel before adding the buildings and sentiment.  I then used foam tape to add it to the card base.

Thanks for visiting!  Please check out the fabulous cards made by the rest of the design team.  This is our last challenge for 2024 so it will stay open over the holiday period, giving you plenty of time to play along.

Products used:

Stamps:  Cozy Christmas (Mama Elephant)

Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Speckled Egg Distress Ink, Limestone, Silver Stone, Evening Gray, Industrial Diamond, Pure Graphite, Burnt Red, Mahogany Bark, Sand Dunes, Rocky Shore, Moss (Altenew)

Cardstock:  White

Dies:  Winter Village (Honey Bee), Mini Slimline Layers (Waffle Flower)

Accessories:  Shimmer Spray

Cheers

Karren

 

27

Hi!  Welcome to my blog. Our sketch hostess over at Freshly Made Sketches this week is Kim Singdahlsen.  I used her great sketch to create a card for my son, whose birthday is in a couple of weeks. If he was still with us he would be 27 years old this year.  This is the 6th birthday since he passed suddenly 😢.   

I used the Shiplap die by The Greetery for both the white panels in the background and for the numbers.  The number panel was a leftover piece from a previous session where I ink-blended the panel with Distress Oxide inks before die-cutting.  I then adhered the shiplap back onto a sheet of copy paper before die-cutting with the numbers.  I stacked the numbers with two black die-cuts as well for dimension.

The white shiplap was adhered to the patterned paper with foam tape and I finished with a simple sentiment - not really birthday-ish but true.

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

Products Used:

Stamps:  Squared Spring Florals (Honey Bee)

Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black, Antique Linen, Tea Dye, Vintage Photo Distress Oxide

Cardstock:  White, Black, Grain & Grunge Patterned Paper (Honey Bee)

Dies:  Shiplap (The Greetery), By the Numbers (PTI)

Cheers

Karren

Pastel Trees

Hi and welcome!  Today's sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches was designed by Linda Callahan and I used it to make a non-traditional Christmas card. 

This die set is an old one from MFT that actually cuts the tree as negative space, but I snipped the decorations away from the tree to give me the tree base and then added white die-cuts over the top of the three pastel-coloured trees.

In keeping with the sketch, I used my scoreboard to add lines above and below the stamped sentiment.  All in all, this was a pretty simply card to make.  What can't be seen in the photo is the clear shimmer pen on the white ornaments and stars.

Thanks for visiting me.  Please make sure you check out the fabulous cards made by the rest of the design team.

Products used:

Stamps:  Merry Christmas Duo (Waffle Flower)

Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black

Cardstock:  Pink Lemonade, Coral Crush (MFT), Mist (Hero Arts), White

Dies:  Christmas Tree Window (MFT)

Accessories:  Clear Sparkle Pen

Rich Poinsettia

Hi and welcome!  Today's card uses the latest grid from the Tic Tac Toe Challenge and for my card I went down the centre column with Poinsettia-Free-Stencil to come up with this card.

I used the absolutely gorgeous Festive Poinsettia stamp, stencil and die set from Alex Syberia to create the poinsettia and heat embossed sentiment.  Once that was complete, I created my card base by adhering some plaid patterned paper down the left hand side and edged with some gold foil cardstock and some black cardstock for a bit of drama. 

I then cut down the poinsettia image and butted it up against the black strip.  I finished with the heat-embossed sentiment and some gold pearls for the centre of the poinsettia.

Thanks for visiting!  Please head over and check out the fabulous cards made by the rest of the design team.

Products used:

Stamps:  Festive Poinsettia (Alex Syberia Designs)

Ink:  Versamark, Amalgam (Gina K), Shadow Creek, Mountain Pine, Pink Pearl, Coral Bliss, Sweet Cherry, Velvet (Altenew)

Cardstock:  White, Black, Gold foil, Home for Christmas patterned paper (CTMH)

Dies:  Festive Poinsettia (Alex Syberia Designs)

Accessories:  Antique Gold EP (SSS), gold pearls

Cheers

Karren

 

Tis the Season

Hi and welcome!  As soon as I saw Jen Mitchell's sketch at Freshly Made Sketches I saw a Santa belt and I couldn't unsee it, so just had to go with it!

I did have to re-arrange the sketch layers to fit my vision but I think you can still see the sketch.  This was really simple.  A square gold frame, black strip and red background - both of which were embossed with the Subtle embossing folder to add some fabric-like texture.

The sentiment was already hot-foiled so this was probably the quickest card I've made in months!

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

Products used:

Cardstock:  White, Black, Cherry Crisp (MFT), Gold foil

Dies:  Square nesting dies (Waffle Flower), Holiday Sentiments Series 2 (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Gold Hot Foil, Subtle Embossing Folder (SU)

Cheers

Karren

Snowy Merry

Hi and welcome. Today’s Freshly Made Sketch was designed by Jennifer Timko and gives us a wide open space to play with. I went simple with patterned paper and a die-cut sentiment.

I’ve had this die for several years and thought it would work well in the space. I die-cut it from both silver glitter paper and white card stock and pieced it together. I adhered it to some patterned paper. Along the bottom I added some more glitter paper cut with a torn edge die.

I finished with a simple stamped sentiment.

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

Products used:

Stamps:  Winter Scene (SSS)

Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black

Cardstock:  White, Silver Glitter Paper, Blurry Flurries (Whimsy Stamps)

Dies:  Snowy Merry Christmas (Poppy Stamps), Torn Edges (MFT)

Cheers

Karren

Big Ole Bow

Hi and welcome!  Today's card uses Jacquie's sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches and I have to admit, this sketch had me thinking.  When I first saw it, I immediately wanted to do some form of Mondrian design with dies, but I didn't have the right sizes of dies and it just became too hard, so it was back to the drawing board.  Then I saw the sketch in a whole new light and decided it was perfect for a big bow and that's what I did.

This image is a digi from Power Poppy and I printed it out and coloured it with Copics before die-cutting it to suit the position of the sketch.  Once that was done I gold-embossed the sentiment onto a black tag and added it with white cotton, piercing a tiny hole in the coloured image to hold the cotton.

I didn't add any other embellishments and I think this is the least amount of Copics I have ever used in one sitting!

Thanks for visiting.  Coincidentally, Color Hues are looking for red and black for their current challenge so I'm going to link up there.

Products used:

Stamps:  Big Ole Bow digi stamp (Power Poppy), Tagged Elegance (The Greetery

Ink:  Versamark

Cardstock:  X-Press It, White, Black

Dies:  2022 Holiday Thank You (The Greetery)

Accessories:  Gilded EP (Brutus Monroe, Copics, white cotton

Cheers

Karren

Edited to Add:  This card got a shout out at Color Hues

 

Case Me a Pinecone

 Hi, I'm so pleased that Michelle Lupton is again doing her Case Me A Christmas Card series after having to take a break from organising it last year.  I'm delighted she has asked me to play along again.  I chose this card to CASE and was inspired by the following elements:

• the slimline size
• the foliage in a curve down the left hand side
• the big bold sentiment in gold on vellum
• the two tone geometric background

And here's my card (I'll post the card I cased down below).

I started with a white slimline card base (full slimline size) and added a cream die-cut striped cover plate.  I also cut the cover plate in kraft and filled in the stripes with kraft strips.  I then set that aside while I worked on the pinecones and foliage.

I die-cut the base of the pinecones in Milk Chocolate and the top in Hot Fudge.  I wanted to add some interest to the base layer so spritzed it with Crooked Broomstick and Fallen Acorn mica sprays.  Once they were dry, it looked a bit bright, so I inked over the top with Ground Espresso Distress Ink to tone it down.  I also spritzed the pine needles with Tree Lot mica spray after sponging the edges with Green Onyx ink.  On the sage foliage, I added some Wintergreen ink but it was too similar to the cardstock colour so near impossible to see.

Once everything was dry, I arranged it into a curve and adhered it to the card base.  The sentiment was heat-embossed on vellum and die-cut and adhered with a mix of liquid glue and tiny slivers of foam tape.  Finally, I finished with some gold pearls.

Here's Michelle's card that I chose to case.  I hope you can see how I was inspired.

 

Thanks to Michelle for inviting me again.  I am excited to see which of my cards she chose to case.  I haven't made many cards this year, so the pickings are slim...  Here is a link to the card Michelle created based on one of mine.

Products used:

Stamps:  Merry Christmas Duo (Waffle Flower)

Ink:  Versamark, Wintergreen (Catherine Pooler), Ground Espresso Distress Ink, Green Onyx (Altenew)

Cardstock;  White, Whip Cream, Kraft, Hot Fudge, Milk Chocolate (MFT), Pinefeather (PTI), Sage (Spellbinders), Vellum

Dies:  Slimline Short Strips (The Ton), Lovely Layers: Winter Greenery (Honey Bee Stamps), Merry Christmas Duo (Waffle Flower)

Accessories:  Tree Lot, Crooked Broomstick, Fallen Acorn Mica Sprays, Antique Gold EP, Champagne pearls (Honey Bee Stamps)

Cheers

Karren

Wedding Card

 Hi!  I'm late posting because we had a long weekend just gone and my days are all out of whack!  But here is my late post using Judy Rozema's sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches.

For my card, I used some Mintay patterned paper that came free with an order from an online store here in New Zealand called Krafter's Cart.  One side had gorgeous images and the other side had a lovely all over floral pattern.  You can see a snippet of the images in the photo above. I found two mirror images of white flowers and fussy-cut them out.  For the background, I die-cut an oval from pale peach cardstock and embossed it with the SU Subtle embossing folder.  I then framed it with an olive frame cut from the same oval die and the next size up in the nesting set.

The sentiment was already hot-foiled and it fit perfectly between the oval frame and I finished with some clear champagne drops.

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

Products used:

Cardstock:  White, Moss (Altenew, Barely Peach (Spellbinders), Patterned Paper by Mintay Papers

Dies:  Essential Modern Ovals, Fancy Sentiments BetterPress and Dies (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Gold Hot Foil, Clear Drops: Champagne (Pink Fresh)

Cheers

Karren

Circle Line

 Hi and welcome!  Amy O'Neill is the hostess over at Freshly Made Sketches this week and she has a fun one for us!  I decided to play with dies for my card.

After die-cutting the elements from various coloured cardstock, I added some ink blending for dimension and then assembled.  I decided to add some blue circles to more replicate the sketch and position my die-cut pieces around and on them.

The sentiment is a negative hot-foiled sentiment which was already prepared so I quickly added that and called my card done!

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

Products used:

Ink:  Gathered Twigs Distress Ink

Cardstock:  White, Wild Cherry (MFT), Paradise (Hero Arts, Spring Moss, Pinefeather (PTI), Avocade (C&9, Dune (Spellbinders)

Dies:  Luminary Circles (SSS), Welcome Winter Sled, Joy, Fancy Sentiment Strips BetterPress (Spellbinders), Gingerbread House (MFT)

Accessories:  Black Hot Foil

Cheers

Karren

Postage Flowers

 

Hi and welcome!  Today is Freshly Made Sketch Challenge Day and our hostess this week is Narelle Farrugia.  As soon as I saw her sketch, I saw postage stamps and that's the direction I took.

This is part of an earlier stenciled panel that I first used on this card.  I used the Postage Collage die to select three pieces to die-cut and then added the additional postage-style stamps on them.  The card base is white and onto that I added a Pastel Sunrise panel I'd stamped with the same colour ink and the Crackle background stamp.  I used this stamp on the stenciled piece as well so this ties it together somewhat.

To finish the card, I stacked a BetterPress sentiment three deep 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:

Stamps:  Postage Collage (Waffle Flower), Crackle Background (SSS

Ink:  Rose Quartz, Peach Parfait, Purple Wine, Orange Cream, Sunkissed, Fire Brick, Mocha, Sea Forest, Marshland, Misty Moor, Puffy Heart, Mangrove Root, Cosmic Berry, Pastel Sunrise, Obsidian Black (Altenew), Lost Shadow Distress Ink

Cardstock:  White, Pastel Sunrise (Altenew)

Dies:  Postage Collage (Waffle Flower, Here For You Sentiments BetterPress and Hot Foil (PinkFresh)

Accessories:  Charming Delight Stencils (Altenew), Subtle EF (SU)

Cheers

Karren

Chalkboard Christmas

Hi and welcome.  I'm the sketch hostess over at Freshly Made Sketches and I decided to add to my meagre Christmas card stash with this card. 

Firstly, I inked up one side of an embossing folder with white pigment ink and ran it through with kraft cardstock.  I repeated this a few times to get a good layer of white ink then set it aside to dry.  Once dry, I lightly inked around the edges with Vintage Photo distress ink.  Then my plans came unstuck!  I had planned to use some patterned paper my mother gave me a piece of which had scripty Christmas words over a chalkboard-looking background, but I didn't have enough!  So I decided to make my own.  I used a chalk bg stamp first then stamped over that with a text Christmas stamp.  It's not the same but it's okay.

I added the two panels to my card base and included a thin strip of gold foil cardstock at the join.  The tag was hot-foiled and then die-cut and I also die-cut some holly leaves and berries which I added to the tag.  I finished with some twine tied in a bow onto the tag.

Thanks so much for visiting.  Please head over and check out what the rest of the DT have done with my sketch.

Products used:

Stamps:  Chalk Background (Hero Arts), Christmas Background (MFT)

Ink:  Cloud White (Altenew), Vintage Photo Distress Ink

Cardstock:  White, Black, Kraft, Amarena Cherry (MFT), Pinefeather (PTI), matte gold foil

Dies:  Seasonal Sketch (Tim Holtz, Tag Sale #5 (PTI), Christmas Mailbox Greetings Hot Foil (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Gold hot foil, twine, Holly & Foliage EF (Spellbinders)

Cheers

Karren

Hello Florals

Hi!  Today's card uses Cecile's sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches and I decided to play with some NBUS for my card.  (Apologies that the photos look a bit garish - I think the camera settings on my phone have changed.)  And, by the way, the price stickers on the ink cubes are in New Zealand dollars not US 😄

The NBUS products I used for this card are the floral dies and the sentiment - both of which come from Pinkfresh Studio.  I stenciled and die-cut the flowers and heat-embossed the sentiment.  For the background, I veered away from the rectangle and went with an oval shape which was embossed with the Brickwork folder from Tim Holtz.  I mounted that onto some matte gold foil and adhered it to a Coral Crush card base.

I then arranged the florals and the sentiment and called it done!  Thanks for visiting.  Please head over and check out the wonderful cards made by the rest of the design team.

Products used:

Stamps:  Here For You Sentiments (Pink Fresh Studio)

Ink:  Versamark, Chasing Sunsets, Indian Summer sets (Pink Fresh Studio), Shadow Creek, Mountain Pine (Altenew)

Cardstock:  White, Coral Crush (MFT), Fold Matte Foil

Dies:  Here For You Sentiments, Garden Party (Pink Fresh Studio)

Accessories:  Garden Party Stencils (Pink Fresh Studio), Brickwork EF (Tim Holtz), Antique Gold EP (SSS)

Cheers

Karren

Ring Thanks

 Hi all, I'm here with my card for the latest Tic-Tac-Toe challenge.  This time, I went down the right hand column with Die-Cut/Thank You/Metallic to come up with this card.

I hot-foiled, stenciled and die-cut the floral image and set it aside while I worked on the other elements.  The card base was enhanced with a corner die placed in the top left and right corners, giving a tone-on-tone effect.  For the sentiment, I die-cut from NBUS Pastel Sunrise cardstock to match the flowers, stacking it three deep before adding it to a matte silver foil shadow.

And that's it.  Thanks for visiting.  I hope you'll check out the fabulous cards made by the design team and have a go yourself.

Products used:

Stamps:  Delighted For You (Pink Fresh)

Ink:  Tropical Forest and Martian Terrain sets (Altenew)

Cardstock:  White, Matte Silver Foil, Pastel Sunrise (Altenew)

Dies:  Delighted For You press plate and die (Pink Fresh) Ring a Ding Corner (Poppy Stamps), Fancy Thanks (SSS)

Accessories:  Silver hot foil, Delighted For You stencils

Cheers

Karren

Rainbow Circles

 Hi and welcome!  It's time for another sketch from the Freshly Made Sketches team and this week our hostess is Jen Brum - who has a dislike of circles.  Check out her sketch... 😮

For my card, I went pretty literal again and found the perfect die for the job.  I chose a selection of rainbow coloured cardstock and die-cut the inners and then die-cut the outer three times and stacked them together.

I finished with a simple birthday sentiment and a white enamel heart.  TBH the enamel heart is to cover up a little blob of glue that I tried to rub away and made worse!

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

Products Used:

Stamps:  Bewitching Rose (Altenew)

Ink:  Versafine Onyx Black

Cardstock:  White, Ballet Slipper, Sweet Pea, Poppy, Sorbet, Sunflower, Lemongrass, Tidepool, Peacock, Grape Soda, Lilac (Concord & 9th)

Dies:  Bubble Parade (SSS)

Accessories:  White enamel heart

Cheers

Karren

Diamond Triangles

 Hi. A quick post from me today. I’ve been out of town for the last few weeks as my daughter needed follow-up surgery so I was with her during her surgery and recovery. 

Today’s card uses the latest sketch from Freshly Made Sketches where our hostess this week is Jen Mitchell. I didn’t want to go the obvious route yet here we are 😀

Geometric hot foil plates and an embossing folder pulled this more-masculine Christmas card together. It’s pretty self-explanatory so I won’t go into any more detail. But feel free to ask any questions.

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

Products used:

Cardstock:  Fog (SSS), White, Dune (Spellbinders), Cranberry Cocktail, Hot Fudge (MFT)

Dies:  Diamonetta Background, Mini Christmas Sentiment Strips (Spellbinders)

Accessories:  Tufted EF (Spellbinders), Pewter Hot Foil

Cheers

Karren