Freshly Made Sketches #415

December 11, 2019 Jentimko 4 Comments

I’m thrilled to be back today with the latest from Freshly Made Sketches. Our sketch hostess this week is our resident Artisan, Narelle Farrugia. Yep, not even one bit of a surprise to any of us who know her, she has again made the Artisan Design Team for Stampin’ Up and I could not be happier for her or SU. Her sketch this week made me breathe a sigh of relief because I was already set up to go for it from last week. Yeah, I told you I was leaving this background stamp on my Misti!

I do love how this card has a totally different vibe that the one last week with virtually the same elements. I stamped the Holiday Wishes background stamp (Neat and Tangled) onto black card stock using Versamark ink and then heat embossed with WOW Clear Gloss Superfine Embossing Powder. I used the same little greenery elements as last week from the Classic Christmas stamp set.

I first stamped in Momento Tuxedo Black in my Misti, did the quick Copic coloring and then put it back in the Misti, over-stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with WOW Gold Rich Super Fine powder. I stamped the sentiment (from Classic Christmas but meant to coordinate with Holiday Wishes) in Versamark and embossed it with Gold Rich too.

I hope you enjoy this sketch as much as I did! These little vertical panels lend themselves to images, patterned paper and I’m sure other things you’ll think of. Hope you’ll join us for the challenge! Thanks so much for stopping in today. See you soon!

Freshly Made Sketches #414

December 4, 2019 Jentimko 8 Comments

Can I confess that I’m starting to think I won’t get all the Christmas cards done this year. In fairness, I lost about 5 weeks of crafting during prime holiday card season but still…. So I’m working to have a few ideas that I can lean on for a bit of mass production (which I generally do not prefer). And I’m going to tell you, I just left this new background stamp from Neat and Tangled in my Misti because I’m going to use it over and over.

Karren is our sketch designer this week at Freshly Made Sketches and she has given us one that is perfect for just this kind of background. I stamped the sentiments in Momento Tuxedo Black and then cut the panel to size. I then stamped these little holiday leaf elements from Classic Christmas and colored them quickly with Copic Markers, then cut them out using the coordinating dies.

I added a thin layer of red card stock to help the background feel finished and then put the whole thing on some green card stock (SU). I just got these awesome stamps from Neat and Tangled and they included a little bonus of the Crystal Clear Mix Sequins in my package. I LOVE THAT!! Reason #5003 to shop small. They love their customers!

I think this little vertical element is going to lend itself to some clever ideas this week and I can’t wait to see what the gallery does with it. Hope you’ll join us. Thanks for stopping in today! See you soon!

Freshly Made Sketches #413

November 27, 2019 Jentimko 3 Comments

**** Make sure to check out my Holiday Sales post pinned to the top. I’ll update it all weekend. ****

Hi everyone! So happy to be here today with the latest from Freshly Made Sketches. Our sketch designer today is the wonderful Cécile Ribon and her sketch is simply delightful! Her whimsical ‘squiggle’ lends itself to all kinds of creative ideas.

As soon as I saw it, I saw word die. And then shaker with a word die. Clearly I forgot the sentiment off to the side in this but I’m hoping that the pretty sequins distract from my sketch departure. I inked up a panel with Distress Ink and my Taylored Expressions Blender Brush (isn’t it PRETTY!!). I love the white bristles that show how much ink you have loaded. I used an old Stampin’ Up die (Wonderful Wreath) for the Joy and then splattered on some Smooch Moonlight and some water. For simplicity, I used the new to me Waffle Flower A2 Layer Dies to make sure my die cut was perfectly centered on the panel (I seem to miss when using my paper cutter) and used the same dies to cut my acetate behind the sentiment.

The sequins are from 29 Lilac Lane and it is the Aqua Dreams Sequin/Bead Mix. I wanted the base to have a little more dimension but still be white so I chose the Simon Says Stamp Glimmery White Card Stock. It has shimmer and texture and is oh so pretty!

For those of you in the United States, I wish you a very happy and safe Thanksgiving weekend. I know the traveling has been precarious and I hope that none of you have been impacted by it. I’m home with my boys and will be cooking up a storm starting later today! Blessings to you all and thank you for being a part of my life.

Holiday Sales!

November 27, 2019 Jentimko No Comments

It is that time of year and I want to share with you some sales by companies I love. If you are looking for it, I suspect you will find it at one of these wonderful sites! I’ll keep updating this post throughout the weekend so come back to see more. I have included affiliate links and appreciate you shopping with me at no additional cost to you.

Ellen Hutson: Nov 27 – Dec 2

Taylored Expressions: Nov 28 (9p CST) – Dec 2 (9a CST) + Cyber Monday Specials too

Concord & 9th: Nov 29 – Dec 3

Simon Says Stamp: Nov 29 Only

Picket Fence Studios: Nov 25 – Dec 2

My Sweet Petunia: Nov 25 – Dec 3 (Midnight CST)

Altenew: Nov 29 Only

Honey Bee Stamps: Nov 28 – Nov 29

The Stamp Market: Nov 29

Crafty Friends Blog Hop – The Stamp Market

November 20, 2019 Jentimko 9 Comments

Welcome to the November blog hop with my Crafty Friends, my second of two posts today! This month we are excited to bring you inspiration from The Stamp Market. I have only recently discovered this company and I’ll tell you what, I LOVE their products. They have a clean, fresh vibe that I can’t resist.

So I fell in love with the Leaves Cover Die the second I saw it. And this is why! Just look at what you can do. I cut the leaves out of watercolor paper and then simply added color. I was playing with fall colors earlier in the month for a background and decided I needed to stretch the idea a bit. I used my Daniel Smith watercolors in yellows, oranges and red and just kept adding paint until it was right. I cut the sentiment out of more watercolor paper with the Lots of Leaves Dies and added the same colors to it. In order to help it pop a bit, I added another die cut of the sentiment underneath.

Here you can see the watercolored panel that I cut down to use inside the card. It is uncolored near the top and there is plenty of room for a note on the lighter parts. As we approach Thanksgiving, this card simply reflects all that is nice about fall in Virginia.

As with previous months, we have a discount that is being offered via our hop. Click on the graphic for a link right to The Stamp Market. Note that there are some restrictions but there is also a sale through November 22nd on the new Color Crush line using code COLORCRUSH20.

Now on to the rest of the hop. I’m thrilled to send you to Amy Kolling, who is next in the rotation. And here is the list in case you get lost along the way.

I hope that you love this month’s inspiration as much as we love sharing it. Make sure to leave us a note to tell us what you think. Let me know if there is a company you’d like to see us collaborate with in the future too!

Freshly Made Sketches #412

November 20, 2019 Jentimko 8 Comments

This is the first of two posts today! Bonus Wednesday! Freshly Made Sketches to start the morning with a fun and clean sketch by the lovely Jennifer Brum.

Not gonna’ lie, this reindeer continues to crack me up! Also, this is pretty much what I’ve been looking like for the last two weeks as I finish up my training and going back out to the line in the new plane. Well, I do manage to put on a uniform and get out of the robe, lol! This hilarious image comes from The Rabbit Hole Designs and I have a few of their things now courtesy of winning a gift card during the Coffee Lovers Fall/Winter Hop.

I colored our caffeinated friend using Copic Markers and found this fun holiday paper in my stash (yes, I really am trying to use it up…truly!). The sentiment is from the stamp set and I used another on the inside that says “Caffeine gives me the jingles all the way”. And yes I do have an intended recipient for this already!! The little holiday colored sequins were a nice extra sent in my package and I put them right to use!

Hope you’ll have a bit of crafting time this week and will join us for this sketch. I love how the team has a wide variety of interpretations! See you in a bit for this month’s Crafty Friends Blog Hop.

Freshly Made Sketches #411

November 13, 2019 Jentimko 4 Comments

Happy middle of the week to you! It is Freshly Made Sketches day and we have a fabulous new sketch by the lovely Kim Singdahlsen this week. I love all the ways you can use that circle element.

Of course, I opted for a flower. Because…well, it is my go to for a circle. But not just any flower. I chose one of my favorite Christmas flowers, the Poinsettia Stamp Set by Simon Says Stamp. I stamped it in Momento Tuxedo Black and then colored with my red Copic Markers. For the shading, I did add a bit of T5 and R39 to help get the shadows a bit deeper on the layered petals. Otherwise, my go-to reds are R24, R27 and R29. Once I had the flower colored, I went back to my Misti and overstamped the image in Versamark Ink.

I heat embossed the flower with Wow! Platinum Super Fine Powder for a subtle shine. I found this old sentiment in my stash (I think it is from a Paper Pumpkin box) and thought it was the right size for the sketch. I stamped in Versafine Onyx Black and heat embossed with Clear powder.

I used some textured black card stock and a snow die to add the holes (from Gina Marie Designs) and added some Sparkling Clear Sequins to finish. I hope you will join us this week! Make sure to check all the gorgeous work by the design team too. Hope you are well…see you again soon!

Freshly Made Sketches #410

November 6, 2019 Jentimko 14 Comments

Hi everyone! Guess what happened? I stamped!! I had a short time at home last weekend and managed to eek out a few minutes to make a card with Linda’s sketch for Freshly Made Sketches and the 2019 Winter Coffee Lovers Blog Hop.

Because I didn’t have a ton of time, I reached for my “obvious” choice. The Stacked Coffee Mugs from Taylored Expressions really make for a detailed yet uncomplicated start. I cut the cups out of white card stock and then cut each fill-in layer out of a different glitter paper. Because I was in on the sparkle, I used a bit more gold for the second layered square.

For the sentiment I chose the Wishes Stamp Set by Gina K Designs. I love how flexible the set really is. I stamped in Versamark and then heat embossed with Wow Gold Rich Super Fine Embossing Powder. I love the Super Fine because even on the small sentiment, you get crisp detail.

I hope you join us for Linda’s fabulous sketch. It is fun and clever, just like her! Almost done with school and back out to the line next week! Hopefully a few more cards will start showing up too! Until then, have a great week.

Freshly Made Sketches #408

October 23, 2019 Jentimko 7 Comments

Hi Everyone! I’m the sketch hostess this week over at Freshly Made Sketches. I hope that you will love this one!

I used the beautiful Snowflake Cluster Die by Hero Arts along with Nuvo Glitter Paste in Tanzanite Lavender. I used one of the dies as like a stencil and then removed. I cut a few of the flakes out to layer on a vellum version of the die cut. And you can see the negative to the side that I’ll use on another project. A great way to stretch your dies! The sentiment is from the Nordic Tree Stamp Set.

Hope you’ll have a moment to join us this week. Make sure you go over and check out the gorgeous work from the design team too! See you soon.

Crafty Friends Blog Hop – Ellen Hutson

October 20, 2019 Jentimko 6 Comments

Welcome to the October hop with my Crafty Friends! I cannot even tell you how excited I am about this month’s featured company. I have been a long time fan of Ellen Hutson and what a thrill to have their team support our hop. For those of you new to this hop, we are a group of friends with a similar beginning in stamping who became friends. Each month on the 20th, we will share inspiration with a focus on one company.

As I mentioned earlier this week, my crafting time this month is pretty much gone due to training on a new plane. But before I left, I just had to pull out the amazing Mondo Holly set to use for this hop. I LOVE this big, gorgeous image! Ok, in truth, I love ALL of the Mondo images from Ellen Hutson. They are so fun to color and are perfect for practicing all kinds of coloring.

I used this coloring as a “brain break” while I was studying leading up to my training. I love just playing with shading! I first stamped the image in Momento Tuxedo Black onto Simon Says Stamp white card stock using my Misti. I always worry about embossing powder with my Copics so it was easy enough just to stamp with a known ink. I started with greens and kept adding richer colors until it had the depth I wanted. They I went to the reds and did the same. Finally a bit of brown for the stem. Then more magic. I went back to the Misti, used some anti-stick powder and over stamped the image with Versamark Ink. Then I heat embossed using Gold Rich Embossing Powder from WOW. Oooooh…..aaaaahh! Using the coordinating die, I cut out the image.

For the card base I stamped the sentiment from the same set in Versamark and heat embossed again but thought it needed a little something else. So I used a technique I learned from a dear friend, Lisa Curcio. As seems to happen in the world of stamping, we were apparently working on similar cards at the same time. She told me about her technique of using watered down liquid glue to create splatters for heat embossing. Well isn’t that smart?! I gave it a go and you can see the result. I used a small paint brush instead of a water pen (an old one used for messy techniques) and it worked perfectly. I did find that it took a little longer to get the powder to set versus using ink but otherwise quite easy.

As you have seen in previous months, we have a Crafty Friends discount code to share with you (what awesome generosity!). Click the button above and use the code CRAFTYFRIENDS20 for a 20% discount on the Ellen Hutson Essentials Line for two days, today and tomorrow (Oct 20-21). There are so many wonderful products in this Essentials Line so happy shopping!