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Posts authored by Jentimko

Freshly Made Sketches #616

Freshly Made Sketches #616 published on 4 Comments on Freshly Made Sketches #616

Well, I never did get back to you last week. Sigh. Once I’m in the training center, all of my brain cells are apparently occupied and I totally forgot. So I guess that means I have some cards to share over the next couple of weeks. For today, I have the latest from Freshly Made Sketches and our last sketch of the year. The team will take a couple of weeks off and be back in the new year. We close out with this awesome sketch by the lovely Amy O’Neill. It is great for your last Christmas cards (that’s me!) or for moving into the new year with fresh stamps.

If you haven’t already heard, the wonderful Dawn Woleslagle is closing her shop, WPlus9. She isn’t leaving the industry, just moving more into designing. We are all winners for that. It looks to me like this set, Joyful Poinsettias, is already sold out but there are some other pretty things left at a huge discount. I have loved coloring this set but I needed fast for today. Heat embossing to the rescue! I set up the flowers and the sentiment, stamped in Versamark and heat embossed with silver. So fast, so elegant!

I used some glitter paper from Simon Says Stamp to complete the sketch and this card was done! Looks fancy, totally easy. Not going to lie, the hardest part of the process was getting photos. Still not great pictures but the silver was giving my camera all kinds of issues. It is so pretty in person so I hope you get the feel of it.

With the challenge open so long, you are welcome to join in at anytime and you can even add multiple cards. Hoping this sketch will be fun for you to use if you have some time off for crafting. Thanks for stopping in today. Really, really, I will have another card up soon. Until then, have a great week!

Merry Merry Merry with Unity

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A very quick post for today. I have a few cards to share over the next week or so as I move through my Christmas stamping. I’m back out in Denver but got some photos before I left so I could share.

When I saw this little reindeer from Unity Stamp Company, I thought it was totally different that anything I have and knew it would be fun to use. It is called Winter Cheer and Deer. I stamped in black ink, then heat embossed with clear so that I could make this good and inky. It was white paper to start and I added tons of distress ink in Vintage Photo, Corduroy and Ground Espresso. I cut it with an old oval die which conveniently matched up to the Stacking Art Deco Labels Dies from Honey Bee Stamps.

I had some really old (like a decade maybe!) paper with the music on it. I love it and hoard it and I need to USE IT!! This is a start. I inked it up with Distress Oxide Ink in Iced Spruce and then Rustic Wilderness. I added splatters with brown ink and then paint. It still needed something, so I added some stitching too. I inked and embossed the sentiments just like the main image and hand cut them (it adds to the vintage vibe to not be too perfect). I tied it up with a bow…literally. Some old seam binding from my stash. I always love the bows made with this ribbon!

Ok, I’m off to learn from some experts and get to be a part of training the newest 60 Captains at United. These are exciting days! Back later in the week with more. Hope you are having a wonderful day!

Freshly Made Sketches #614

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Well hello all! It has been a minute since I posted. Quick explanation…I’m in training to become a facilitator (instructor) for United’s Captain Leadership Training. This has taken much of my brain power and I have still been flying the line, of course. Quite the trip over Thanksgiving but so grateful to my many kind passengers and crew members! I muddled back into the craft room on Monday and got to work on this sketch. Not sure I quite hit the mark but I did have fun with the card. Our sketch designer this week at Freshly Made Sketches is the awesome Jen Brum. She also inspired this card with her all white beauty last week.

I started with the Lovely Layers: Winter Birds and created this cardinal. I chose a red cardstock and then added some Distress Ink to darken the back layers a bit. I cut the Lovely Layers: Winter Greenery from white card stock using my Bitty Buzz Cutter. I love this little table top die cut machine for working through these little dies and keeping the texture showing on them.

I decided I needed a little more color so I cut down my white panel and added a printed paper behind it from the new Holiday Wishes Paper Pack. The sentiment comes from Mini Messages: Holiday. Love all the sentiments but this one seems especially right. I added a few pearls to try to match the sketch a little more.

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday if you celebrate it and are off to a good week. I’m back in training next week but I’ll be trying to get ahead a little with a card for while I’m gone. Goodness knows, I need some more Christmas cards to get done! Thanks for stopping in today. Make sure to go see all the beautiful work from the FMS Design Team and our Guest Designer this week.

Freshly Made Sketches #611

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Do you hear it? That freight train of the holiday season has started coming down the tracks!! I’m pretty sure I’m already behind! I think you will be getting holiday cards non-stop from now on (ok, like you haven’t already but now I’m really, REALLY all in). Good thing the amazing Jen Mitchell has a great sketch for us this week at Freshly Made Sketches!

For the last few weeks, I’ve been doing lots with inking on die cuts. This week, I opted for clean. I pulled out products from Honey Bee Stamps latest release (and added some older things too) and had such fun on this. To start with, the Lovely Layers: Large Snowflake was going to be the star of the show. I wasn’t sure how the background was going to go so I started with the snowflake. First I cut it from glitter paper (it is GORGEOUS) but realized it wasn’t right for this card. So I used some watercolor paper with the thoughts I might ink it up. But just looking at all the detail on that thicker paper, I opted to just leave it plain and I love it. Using the same watercolor paper, I cut a card based and the other plain layer. I found this print from the old Vintage Holiday Paper Pack that has coordinating snowflakes (I love how HBS keeps things coordinated from season to season!!).

I decided that I needed a bit of shine on this so I heat embossed the sentiment from the Good Tidings Stamp Set in silver and cut out with a coordinating die. The shiny silver pearls are from the new Metallic Mix Pearls. Fun to have some super shiny choices! The ribbon with the silver edges was from my stash and was a great finish. I like that I can make a few more of these with no trouble and add to my stash!

I hope this week finds you well. I appreciate you stopping by and spending a few minutes of your day with me. See you soon!

Freshly Made Sketches #610

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Hi all! Super quick today, getting this post finished after Halloween fun. I am the sketch designer over at Freshly Made Sketches this week. Tried something new and I hope you will like the idea.

I played with some new things from Honey Bee Stamps. The little elements are from Lovely Layers: Seasonal Frame and the sentiments are from Mini Messages: Holiday. I had some scraps that had some ink and spritzing an used those for cutting out the elements. Saved a bit of time.

I added everything to a background from the Grain & Grunge Paper Pack and added a few pearls. I love all the things that the team has done with the sketch and I hope you will find some fun ideas with this trio.

Thanks for dropping by. Sorry for the short post…off to fly tomorrow! Have a great rest of your week.

Freshly Made Sketches #609

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Hello everyone! Hope the week is treating you well. Sorry for all the quiet lately. I took some time off and went on a fall road trip with my sister! Apples, fall colors, gourd lantern making, glass pumpkin blowing and lots of laughs. It has been years since we spent the kind of time together and it was really good (photo below).

I’m back with the latest from Freshly Made Sketches and a sketch by our dear Judy Rozema This one has a few more layers and extra details but that gives lots of room for interpretation!

My starting place was actually the bottom of the card. I wanted to decide what to do with the little lines at the bottom of the sketch so I played with the idea of twine. While I was rooting around for the right one, I came across this little sequin trim and that was that. All in on gold! I used the Lovely Layers: Poinsettias dies on paper I inked with Distress Oxide Candied Apple ink. After cutting the layers, I added some more Distress Ink in the same color plus a little Aged Mahogany Distress Ink. I spritzed with water and then added some gold splatters.

I found this plaid pattern (or is it tartan…I never know) in the Make It Merry Paper Pack and used a sentiment from Foil Script: Holiday that I had already foiled that was sitting in my stack for just such an occasion. When I’m foiling sentiments, I tend to do as many as I can and leave them for when I need a quick card.

I hope you have fun with this one and find some time for yourself this week. Make sure to look at all the beautiful cards from our design team and our guest designer this week!

And some of the photos of our shenanigans:

Freshly Made Sketches #607

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We have a super interesting sketch this week at Freshly Made Sketches created by the lovely Amy O’Neill. At first, I thought flowers and a large sentiment. Then, I thought stencils. And finally, I came to this plan. Well, sort of.

This started out with the plan to put a pinecone at the top and bottom of the sentiment. And for the record, a totally different sentiment (went through a few on this one). I just could not get the pinecone to look right in the opposite direction which is crazy since that is how they are on trees but… Some days are just like that. In any case, I did lots of spritzing and inking on these Lovely Layers: Winter Greenery dies. These Bitty Buzzwords: Holiday sentiment finally worked just right on a rectangle with gold heat embossing.

Again, the plan went a little sideways. I planned to add red berries to the holly but at the last minute opted to add some gold embossing to the leaves and elements. Once that was there, the red didn’t make sense. So I added some gold pearls instead! I had a little time when making this which is good because I just had to keep walking away until inspiration struck. But in the end, I had fun just playing around and that is the entire point of this, after all.

The team has all kinds of cool takes on this one and I think the gallery is going to be super fun! Oh, and as I’m typing I realized I missed the rectangle layer. Sigh. Hope Amy doesn’t fire me, lol! Have a lovely week. Stay safe and be kind. Goodness knows we need a lot of kind.

Freshly Made Sketches #606

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I suppose I am fully committed to holiday cards now. I mean…there might be others for fall but… Not for today at least. Our sketch designer at Freshly Made Sketches this week is our lovely Narelle. Usually when I see circles, I see flowers. But today, I saw trees. I know, trees are not circles but that’s just how I’m rolling this week.

I pulled out the Lovely Layers: Trees set to take a look. On a piece of Tim Holtz Heavystock, I spritzed some Distress Spray in Pumice Stone and Lost Shadow. Once that was dry, I cut out the trees. I wanted to go with the idea of snowy trees. I started by inking the back of the trees and the one tree without a layer. I blended on some Bundled Sage and Peeled Paint Distress Inks and then added a bit of Pumice Stone. I made the single tree a bit darker to make it look more like it was in the background. I used my brand new Waffleflower Grip Mat for blending and it is a game changer. No tape, nothing hard, works great. So happy I got it!!

For the top layer of the trees, I just added a little bit of Pumice Stone where I thought shadows might be. All of the layers got splatters of Hero Arts Metallic Ink (White) and Iridescent Shimmer Spray. I used a panel of the Heavystock for the base and blended on some Speckled Egg Distress Oxide Ink and added just a touch of Faded Jeans in the corner. On a scrap that had the splatters on it, I stamped the sentiment from Inside: Holiday Sentiments. As I was starting to put it together, I decided to add a bit more shimmer to the background with the Shimmer Spray and then added some gold pearls.

I had fun getting inky on this one today. These die cuts are so great and I find that I really enjoy just playing around with the ink to see what happens. Thanks so much for stopping in today. Hope you are having a great week!

CASE Me A Christmas Card – Surprise Edition

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For those of you who know Michelle Lupton, you know that she is both super talented and one of the nicest people! Over the last years, she has done a series of CASE Me A Christmas Cards where she will CASE (Copy and Share Everything) one of her guests cards and vice versa. You take a non-holiday card and turn it into a holiday card using the inspiration of each other’s work. It is always such fun. This year, Michelle has had some things happen where she was just unable to commit to the project. Soooooo….a whole group of stampers committed to do it together in honor of her!!! This is primarily an Instagram event and all you have to do is go over to IG and search for the hashtag: #casemeachristmascard2023

The hardest part of doing this for me is narrowing down the choice of what to CASE. I generally use the rule of three on a CASE where I change 3 things while keeping some of the main elements of the original. In this case, I chose a floral card with partial die cutting. Her original is posted below. I used the Joyful Poinsettia set from WPlus9 (I know you are super shocked) and found the die for the set worked perfectly in the partial die cutting. I used my Copic Markers to color the image with traditional colors.

I chose Artichoke Card Stock from Concord and 9th as my base once I had finished my coloring. Then I created a mini slimline card using the Sweet Stacks: Mini Slimline Dies. I heat embossed my sentiment in Gilded Embossing Powder on Black Card Stock by Concord and 9th. Oh, and if you have ever had trouble with heat embossing on black (I did and thought it was my powders…and I tried a lot of powders), this card stock changed the game. It is smoother and somehow the heat embossing stays crisper. YAY! I added some splatters with Gold and Irisdescent White and then some red pearls.

So here is Michelle’s gorgeous card. Things I kept: Partial Die Cut, Sentiment Placement, Florals and Gems. Things I changed: Slimline layout, Copic coloring, Raised sentiment, Image panel to edge.

I hope you like my version of her card. Please come over and celebrate with us all. Michelle is just beloved and I’m thrilled to be a part of this ode to her talent.

Freshly Made Sketches #605

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Another week has flown by…literally. Lots of flying! But I did have a little time for some coloring this week. Just in time for a new sketch at Freshly Made Sketches by the amazing Karren Johnson.

My obsession with these gorgeous flowers from Joyful Poinsettia has not waned. I thought it would be fun to create a dark background on a one layer panel for the circle element. All of the coloring is Copic Markers.

I used the Quilted A2 Cover Plate die to add a little interest in the background on Cobblestone Card Stock by Concord and 9th. I used gold embossing on the sentiment and a few gold pearls for a little extra shine.

I hope you like this one! Come over and see all the team has created plus a beautiful card from a guest designer this week too! Thanks for stopping in today. See you again soon!

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