September!! So happy it is here! Still flying a lot but maybe I’ll get a few more moments to breathe. Thrilled for this sketch by my hiking goddess friend Jennifer Brum. If you don’t follow her ‘on the trail’ adventures, you should. I live vicariously through her! She gave us a wonderful sketch for Freshly Made Sketches this week…which I promptly got reversed on the panels. Ah well.

I was inspired to go for a little Christmas this week but in a non-traditional color way. I think this might be a palette I lean on this year. I blended Salvaged Patina and Kitsch Flamingo onto white card stock (the purple is just where they blend!). I actually blended it onto an A2 sized panel with the intention of doing something else but then the plan took a turn. I used the Cottontail Powder Tool on the whole panel (this tool is fabulous!) and then stamped the Falling Snow background stamp in Versamark ink and heat embossed with white powder.

I cut down the panel to create the back layer and a layer to peek through on the top. Using the Pine Trees Honey Cuts, I cut out the biggest tree from a white panel and to layer over one of the inked panels with foam tape. As my plan came together, I inked up a small scrap of white to match the background and added a sentiment from Inside: Holiday Sentiments (all the stamps and dies are from Honey Bee Stamps). Before putting it all together, I splattered the inked panels with some Hero Arts Iridescent Shimmer Spray. I added a few pink gems to finish it off.

You can see how I twisted the panels the wrong way but I think the sketch lends itself to so many options. The team made some awesome projects of course! I hope you will be inspired and come over to join us. Thanks for stopping in today. See you soon!

A quick hello and a new sketch from Freshly Made Sketches this week. I’m the sketch designer and I hope you enjoy this one!

I’m about done with summer and ready for fall colors. Today, I pulled out a favorite set from Honey Bee Stamps called Garden Harvest Florals. I colored the images with my Karin Markers. I definitely have not used them enough and they were perfect for this watercolor look.

For the sketch portion, I used the Sweet Stacks: Circles dies to add a bit of dimension (and to follow the sketch). I love the bit of gingham peeking out. The paper is from the Gingham Galore Fall pack.

Thanks so much for stopping in today. I keep hoping to find a moment to catch my breath but I think that won’t happen until September…she says optimistically. Hope you have a great day!

The latest sketch from Freshly Made Sketches is by designer Judy Rozema and it is wonderful! And just what I needed to create a card my husband requested.

You see, his Air National Guard unit has a flying unicorn on the patch so they all have ALL the unicorn things. One of the men who has worked with him for a while is retiring so he requested a flying unicorn card. And I have a stamp for that that I have held onto for a while!

The unit is in West Virginia so blue and yellow are primary for the colors there. And the patch has a bit of red so I added some of that for variety. The set is an old one from Newton’s Nook Designs called Believe in Unicorns. Super fun and now you see why I have held onto it. I colored with Copic Markers and cut it out with the coordinating dies.

I inked the little rectangles (cut with Honey Bee Stamps Sweet Stacks: Rectangles dies) with Prize Ribbon and Squeezed Lemonade inks and added a sentiment from Honey Bee Stamps.

I hope you will come over and join us this week. The team has awesome inspiration and we love seeing what you create. Thanks for stopping in. See you soon!

Well hello, friends! Long time, no blogging. I have to say that, as you can imagine, the summer flying season is pretty busy right now. I am gone a lot, which has been a big adjustment from the last couple of years. I’m sure many of you are experiencing the same kinds of restructuring. When I am home, I’m trying to take advantage of the fleeting time with my family. So, something had to give and it has been crafting. I know that my normal creative pattern will return as we get into the fall and the house quiets down but for now, I’m enjoying the time I have with my guys. With that, I did find a quiet moment yesterday to create.

This new sketch from Freshly Made Sketches was designed by the lovely Amy O’Neill and it immediately sparked some ideas. The hardest part for me when I have been away from the craft room is jumping back in. So I turned to a favorite stamp set and an easy coloring method to keep it fun.

This pretty flower set is Meadow Motifs from SugarPea Designs. It is one of my all time favorite flower sets and you know I love a flower set. I did some watercoloring on the flowers and little butterflies and then cut them out with the coordinating dies.

I cut out circles from the same watercolor paper used for the flowers with a circle die from the Sweet Stacks: Circles Dies from Honey Bee Stamps. I added the Bitty Buzzwords sentiments using the same paper pad as the background with a coordinating stamp.

Thank you for stopping in today. I have missed sharing with you and hope to get a little more time this week for some more creative time. Until next time, have a wonderful week!

A quick post for a great new sketch from Freshly Made Sketches. I know I have been pretty quiet and I, truthfully, have not been doing much crafting. Between the flying schedule and the boys being home for summer, my days just seem to be full of other things. Everything to its season…. But I do love when I get a couple of minutes for me!

When I saw this great sketch from Cécile, I thought back to an older set of mine from Altenew and it worked just as I had hoped. Weekend Doodles is the set and I always have fun coloring these flowers.

I paired the image with some fun gingham paper from Honey Bee Stamps and a sentiment from the set. I added a few yellow pearls to finish. A sweet summery card. Just what I had hoped for!

Come over to see what the whole team has created and I hope you have a few minutes for your own crafting this week. See you soon!

Hello friends! Sorry for the quiet over the last two weeks. The full summer flying season has started and I am busy, busy, busy at work. Not a lot of time for crafting, sadly. But I am the sketch designer for this week at Freshly Made Sketches so I worked to make time for a bit of creativity.

As usual when I haven’t been making much, I went for really clean. I love the look of a pop of color against white. I inked up some Hammermill white card stock with Distress Oxide Inks (Kitsch Flamingo, Squeezed Lemonade, Twisted Citron, Tumbled Glass) and cut it out with the Lovely Layers: Bugs butterfly die. SOOOOO pretty!

I splattered it with some White Iridescent Shimmer Spray for a little more dimension. I foiled the sentiment with Aura foil and the variation in that one is perfect for the rainbow colors of the butterly, don’t you think? I added some Lovely Layers: Greenery leaves in the background and added some Spring Pearls.

I hope you like the sketch and have some time to play along this week. Thanks for stopping in today!

My dear stamping friends, hello! You may have gotten a rather weird “post” from me this week and I had no real ability to explain. My blog had a fundamental breakdown and honestly, I thought it was all lost in cyberspace. Thankfully, my service provider, Go Daddy, was able to recover and fix the entire mess but it took days. I do think that it is all fixed and all the safety protocols are in place to protect you and me. But it took a lot of brain space and time to get through the mess of it.

With that, I’m just going to let you know that I will be off of the blog for about a week more for some family time. I have also been flying a bit more (which is a good thing for the travel industry) and that has required some adjustment to my time management. I am so very grateful for all of you and so glad I still have this format to reach out to you and share. Wishing you a beautiful day!

Hi everyone! I am the sketch designer this week at Freshly Made Sketches and I hope you will like it. I definitely did and actually created two cards.

I actually created the same card in two ways. I don’t do this often but usually have a lot of fun when I do and that is what happened with this. My inspiration was the Seeds of Kindness stamp set and dies from Honey Bee Stamps. The actually has a seed pack die too but I stuck to just the basic set today.

I stamped the image onto watercolor paper and colored with my Karin Markers (colors shown at end of the post). I added a little bit of vintage looking Distress Ink on the edges of the image to add to the feeling of age. Some lace ribbon from my stash was perfect for the sketch and I love the overall look.

For my second version, I chose Copic Markers and colored in a similar palette but more spring-like and new. Instead of lace, I added a colored border and a few pearls instead of splatters.

With this one, I used an alternate sentiment and masked the original sentiment and then stamped it in. The banner cuts right on the edges for a clean effect (the banner was used on the first one too, just with the image sentiment).

I hope you are inspired to play along with this. I had such fun just playing in the stamp room on these. Make sure you come see what the team created too. Thanks for stopping in today. See you soon.

Colors:

I’m sure at this point you detect a theme. Since for me creativity is a stress outlet, I have been focusing on Ukraine themed projects. And before I get into this too much, I want to make sure you know about a card auction on Instagram. I have two cards up for auction. The simple explanation, people bid on the cards and commit to pay that much to one of the charities the organizers have listed (you choose from the list and they are well vetted). If you win, you donate and show the receipt and the designer sends the cards. Simple. No money exchanges with the designers or organizers. Click here to see more: Ukraine Card Drive

Now to the card for today. Using the latest sketch for Freshly Made Sketches designed by the fabulous Karren Johnson. It was exactly the sketch I needed! There are a number of companies and designers giving personal use images to inspire. This one is from the amazing Emily Midgett.

I printed Emily’s image on watercolor paper with my printer. I wasn’t sure my printer could do that so a happy surprise. Using Daniel Smith watercolors, I just sat and colored away.

I did have to cut away a part of the image (bad planning on my part on the print size) but for this, I wanted the focus mostly on the sunflower anyway. I chose a Honey Bee Stamps sentiment from a set where Emily had designed the art. And it seems just right.

I hope you are doing well and staying safe. I’m grateful every day for all the crafty friends in my life. None of us are alone. Back Friday with something fun and new (and not a sunflower). See you then!

I hope you are having a great week so far. The latest sketch from Freshly Made Sketches is designed by the lovely Kim Singdahlsen and I had such fun with it.

Recently, when going through my cards, I came to the clear awareness that I make lots of cards with flowers, lol. I mean, I cannot say no to a good flower image. But with that, I don’t have cards to send to some on my list…especially my oldest while he is in college. While I will still make lots of flower cards, I am making a point to add other things in. Thus, today’s card. I reached for the Caffeinated – Bee stamp from The Rabbit Hole Designs because it cracks me up. And because he loves the coffee cards I send him. I colored it with Copic Markers and then pulled out some things from Honey Bee Stamps (because bee!) to go with him.

I chose patterned paper from the Funfetti Birthday pack because of honeycomb print. Super fun! I thought the Art Deco Label shape was fun for the center and a little unexpected. I stamped it with the sentiment from the stamp set and added the little chemical stamp from the Caffeinated – Reindeer set (it is the formula for caffeine, btw). I look forward to sending this one to the kid!

So glad you stopped by today. Come over and join us this week. Make sure you check out the inspiration from the team too. Have a great week. See you soon.