Thursday, 30 July 2026

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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Thursday, 23 July 2026

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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Friday, 17 July 2026

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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Thursday, 16 July 2026

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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